TacticScaleWhat Charles River Laboratories International Does & How It Makes Money (CRL)
Updated October 2026 · reflects Charles River Laboratories International's latest reported financials
Contract research provider of lab animals and drug testing services. It earns fees from pharmaceutical and biotech clients that outsource drug discovery, safety testing and quality control work, and it also sells research animals, related services and contract manufacturing for therapies such as cell therapies.
How Charles River Laboratories International makes money
It earns fees from pharmaceutical and biotech clients that outsource drug discovery, safety testing and quality control work, and it also sells research animals, related services and contract manufacturing for therapies such as cell therapies.
What Charles River Laboratories International does
Charles River Laboratories, founded in 1947 and based in Wilmington, Massachusetts, provides outsourced services for the early stages of drug development. It has three segments. Research Models and Services breeds rodents for research and offers genetically engineered models, insourcing and animal diagnostics, and it also develops and produces cell therapies. Discovery and Safety Assessment, its core preclinical business, takes drug candidates from discovery through toxicology, pathology, pharmacokinetics and other safety studies. Manufacturing Solutions provides quality control testing for pharmaceuticals and consumer products, specialized biologics testing and contract development and manufacturing. The company works for pharmaceutical and biotech companies in the U.S., Europe, Canada and Asia Pacific. Its partners include the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and Children's Hospital Los Angeles in contract manufacturing, Medigen Vaccine Biologics on an enterovirus vaccine, and the Francis Crick Institute on antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) discovery.
Products & services
- Research models (purpose-bred rats and mice)
- Genetically engineered models and research animal diagnostics
- Discovery services (in vitro and in vivo)
- Safety assessment (toxicology, pathology, safety pharmacology, bioanalysis, DMPK)
- Quality control and biologics testing
- Contract development and manufacturing (CDMO), including cell therapies
What is Charles River Laboratories International worth?
On an owner-earnings DCF, Charles River Laboratories International's most-likely value is about $167 versus a recent price near $302 (45% above fair value). But TacticScale only calls a stock undervalued when the price sits below its conservative no-growth floor (~$87) with a margin of safety — so the honest verdict here is “Fairly priced — no edge.” Fair value earns its keep only at the extremes, not in the wide middle.
Price sits in the normal range — fair value isn't actionable here; it earns its keep only when price drops below the no-growth floor, or runs to roughly double the optimistic case.
⚠ High leverage — net debt is 7.2× annual cash flow. Net debt is subtracted from this fair value, but refinancing at higher rates, principal timing, and share dilution aren’t modeled — the equity can be worth far less if cash flow weakens.
Analysis, not advice. Fair value is a margin-of-safety estimate from a deterministic owner-earnings DCF, not a price target or recommendation. See the full breakdown →
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