The expansion at the site in Nottingham – financial terms of which were not disclosed – will increase capacity for both in vivo and in vitro preclinical drug research according to a Crown spokesman.
He told Outsourcing-pharma.com the “increase in animal capacity is to allow for more studies to be run” adding that “we’re also establishing new models and broadening collections of cell lines, PDX, syngenic models focused on breast, prostate and ovarian cancers.”
Precos' core businesses are its orthotopic and metastatic modelling technologies, imaging services and patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models. The firm was acquired by Crown in July 2013 as part of the contract research organisation’s (CRO) strategy of building in Europe.
This strategy was cited as a driver for the facility expansion by the Crown spokesman, who said: “Europe seen as central to Crown’s growth” adding that client demand had also been a factor.
He also said the Precos site’s “proximity and access to expertise models of caucasian cancer types,” but did not go into specific details.
The facility in question is located near the University of Nottingham where the PDX technology was developed.
US-headquartered Crown will rename Precos Crown Bioscience UK and, according to its spokesman, has already gone on a hiring spree in preparation for the facility expansion.
He said: “Additional scientific and technical staff were brought on and trained during Q4 2014 to allow for the new capacity to be operational as quickly as possible.”