Discovery Life Sciences acquires In Vitro ADMET Laboratories

Biospecimen Leader Gains World's Largest Hepatocyte Inventory And World-Renowned Scientific Leader With Latest Acquisition

HUNTSVILLE, Ala., Dec. 2, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Discovery Life Sciences™ (Discovery), the biospecimen and biomarker specialists™, today announced that it has acquired In Vitro ADMET Laboratories (IVAL) to add the world's largest hepatocyte inventory and a world-renowned scientific leader to its growing company. Maryland-based IVAL is an industry-leading provider of physiologically relevant in vitro experimental systems to enhance the efficiency of drug metabolism, toxicology, and pharmacology testing for the pharmaceutical industry. 

Albert P. Li, Ph.D. founded IVAL in 2004 and will join Discovery's leadership team as Chief Scientific Officer of Pharmacology and Toxicology.  Under Dr. Li's leadership, IVAL has been instrumental in supporting the submissions and eventual approvals of many breakthrough therapies and companion diagnostics.  Dr. Li has devoted his career to advancing scientific concepts and technologies to predict human drug properties accurately. He is a pioneer in the isolation, cryopreservation, and culturing of human hepatocytes and the application of human hepatocytes to evaluate drug metabolism, drug-drug interactions, and drug toxicity. Dr. Li will lead Discovery's future innovations in this area.

Discovery will continue IVAL's innovative use of human hepatocytes to understand drug effects on the human liver, allowing researchers to select more accurately drug candidates that are the safest and most efficacious for further development while reducing patient risk, clinical trial failure rates, and the associated time and cost of drug development.

IVAL complements Discovery's existing science-based biospecimen drug and biomarker development expertise. The acquisition marks another advancement in Discovery's expansion, as the company can now provide researchers with access to the largest hepatocyte inventory in the world and associated leading-edge technologies at scale. Discovery has now completed nine strategic acquisitions in the past three and a half years and invested in expanding its technologies and laboratories to cement its position as the leading provider of research biospecimens and biomarker development services.

"Discovery Life Sciences has an unwavering commitment to innovation and excellence across all of our business units," said Discovery's Chief Scientific Officer Shawn Levy, Ph.D. "IVAL supports our mission to continue developing our capabilities to support our clients comprehensively in drug research and development through the expansion of our biospecimen offerings." 

"IVAL and Discovery will now serve a much wider range of drug research and development scientists.  Both companies share the passion and commitment to providing the best products and services to help accelerate successful drug development programs," said Dr. Li. "IVAL is excited to join the Discovery family and expand Discovery's innovative offerings to help researchers more rapidly advance the research and development of new therapies to treat patients around the globe more safely and effectively."

About Discovery Life Sciences and HudsonAlpha Discovery

Discovery Life Sciences is the company of Biospecimen and Biomarker Specialists, combining the world's largest commercial biospecimen inventory and procurement network with preeminent multi-omic biomarker service laboratories to accelerate new therapies supported by biomarker and companion diagnostic programs for cancer, infectious disease, and other rare and complex conditions. We are a leading provider of highly characterized human cellular starting materials and expert multi-omic analytical services to advance cell and gene therapy research, development, and manufacturing programs.

HudsonAlpha Discovery® is Discovery's sequencing and bioinformatics division ─ a globally recognized service laboratory that leverages the most current genomic research technologies to support discovery, translational, and clinical research comprehensively.

Driven by leading scientific expertise and innovative use of current technologies, the Discovery team engages and consults with customers to overcome obstacles more rapidly and obtain results to make critical research and development decisions at market-leading speed.  We are Science at your Service™!  For more information, visit dls.com.

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