How the Merger of CRADL® and Explora BioLabs Built Success

The acquisition helped Charles River’s turnkey vivarium service build a consistent brand drawn from the best features of both parties 

Three years ago this week, in the midst of a pandemic, Charles River’s turnkey vivarium business, CRADL^® (Charles River Accelerator and Development Labs) officially welcomed its competitor Explora BioLabs to the family, joining two entities with strong portfolios but different cultures and ways of doing business.

Mergers are rarely easy and not all end well. Success lies in great communication, structured planning centered around the people coming together, and shared desire for success. Flash forward to today, and the integration of Explora into CRADL is widely considered a success for both clients and employees, not just in the eyes of CRADL leadership but among stakeholders in the biomedical research community. By being adaptable, agile, and open to melding together the best of both companies, CRADL has emerged stronger than ever, says Julie Freebersyser, DVM, DACLAM, Charles River’s Executive Director of CRADL Operations for the past five years.

“We now have a unified offering and go-to-market strategy for all of our North American locations,” says Julie. “This unified offering for clients allows them to easily move across the network and be guaranteed the same great service and experience site to site.”

For the original Explora BioLabs locations integrated into CRADL, clients now have direct access to Charles River’s other products and services, from research models to testing services, sometimes at specialized prices, says Freebersyser. “We’ve brought synergies to those clients across the portfolio to quickly deliver more resources as a true partner through their drug discovery workflow in preparation for clinical phases. Clients can easily utilize Charles River services in a way that wasn’t possible before the acquisition.” In a business where speed matters so much, this holistic service delivery is invaluable to growing biopharma.

Senior Director of Operations, Charlie Cook, who came to Charles River through the Explora acquisition, said the integration process went much smoother than he expected. He credits its success to the hard work of Freebersyser and others from the CRADL leadership team. Explora BioLabs brought new ideas and experience to the table, he added. For instance, following the acquisition Cook was interested to learn that Explora’s fractional vivarium staffing services, was one that Charles River was trying to establish. Fractional services, as its name suggests, arranges for skilled technicians to be dispatched to 2-3 different sites, usually biotech vivaria, where full-time dedicated service isn’t warranted. “Adding this service has allowed the CRADL business model to be even stronger and to provide an even better offering to clients,” he said.

Hurdles, but ultimately victory

While today's CRADL team is pleased with its progress, the journey has not been without challenges. Change did not happen overnight. One of the biggest hurdles, and one that inevitably impacts almost any acquisition, was aligning the different company cultures and business practices. At the time of the acquisition, Explora ran its facilities and provided different entry points, primarily serving the small to mid-sized biotech community. CRADL, meanwhile, had supported a more diversified clientele of mid and large pharma, including a few dedicated CRADL run as exclusive, single client use facilities. From animal care methods to employee schedules, each company has something to learn from the other.

“Even though there were many synergies in the services provided to clients, it amazed me how two companies seemingly so similar from the outside functioned so differently inside,” said Freebersyser.

CRADL leadership faced the delicate job of aligning the cultures and ensuring every people leader and their employees were on the same page. Freebersyser did not want this acquisition to push incoming employees to park their ideas, strategies, and culture by the door and get with the new program. Rather CRADL envisioned a path forward where the strengths of both operations could be fully integrated for a stronger product.

Toward that end, the team kicked off the integration process by bringing 30+ managers from both businesses to in-person workshops in San Francisco. “Everyone talked about the good, the bad, and the new possibilities within operations, what we wanted for our collective new culture, and what we needed to work on,” said Cook. “In addition to the time we spent during daytime working sessions, we had dinners and free time together. We built bonds between the groups, gave people a voice, and strong committees emerged from the experience to lead positive change.”

Heather Ludwig, a Manager and Human Resources Partner who also joined through the Explora acquisition said that as an employee and a people leader, she has been “super happy” with the transition to Charles River. “While the original notification of the change felt daunting and scary, it has been the biggest blessing. It has translated to a lot of job satisfaction and opportunities for our team,” she said.

At the end of the day, the value proposition of the expanded CRADL was one of consistency, where customers could reliably find the same improved services and value wherever they went. “CRADL has always, in my eyes, been like a franchise,” says Freebersyser. “That's how CRADL began. We have always wanted clients to have a unified experience, and I would not sacrifice that vision. So, the team knew that at the end of this merger, I didn’t just want the name on the marquee to say CRADL, I wanted every process, technique, employee experience, and client engagement to be the same. This led to significant innovation on both sides, where in some cases we completely reimagined a process or services and built it from the ground up together.”

Grappling with Tougher Market Conditions

While the integration is almost fully in the rear window—Freebersyser acknowledges there is always going to be more work to do around the edges— CRADL, like the entirety of the life sciences industry, is now grappling with tough market conditions brought on by a myriad of factors. Business is slower, and biotech funding is less plentiful. Yet she is confident that the work done to consolidate and optimize CRADL positions it as a superior resource for biotech communities as they once again being to ramp back up.

“Because we have integrated and aligned from top to bottom, we've been able to right-size to the market demands and pivot to offer new services clients want or need. It has allowed the organization to be nimbler, which is exactly the agility we aim to deliver to our clients,” she said. “We have now moved on to deeper investment in new digital platforms, such as Apollo^™ for CRADL, for easier client onboarding, training, and service requests. As more clients reach the in vivo phase of their work, we’re prepared to accelerate their progress and scale more successfully alongside them.”

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