Company: CRL
Filing Date: 2025-02-19
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001100682-25-000011
Chunk: 21

Company: CHARLES RIVER LABORATORIES INTERNATIONAL, INC.
Filing Date: 2025-02-19
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 21
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 our operating efficiency and better position ourselves to function successfully in the current and future business environment, which we believe will collectively enable us to maximize value for our shareholders. 

10

CHARLES RIVER LABORATORIES INTERNATIONAL, INC.

Over the past decade, we have expanded our capabilities by adding high-science services with the goal to deliver fast and high quality end-to-end integrated, non-clinical solution to accelerate drug development. We intend to continue to broaden the scope of the products and services that we provide across the drug discovery and non-clinical development continuum primarily through internal development, and also, through focused acquisitions and our strategic partnerships strategy, all of which are intended to enable us with the flexibility to adapt and innovate to meet our client’s changing needs. Acquisitions, such as our acquisitions of Explora BioLabs in fiscal 2022, SAMDI in 2023, and Noveprim in 2023, have been (and we expect will be in the future) an integral part of our growth strategy, both to expand our portfolio and broaden our geographic footprint. We are committed to a disciplined approach that seeks to target businesses that are a sound strategic fit. We aim to consistently deliver shareholder value, including the achievement of a hurdle rate for return on invested capital above our weighted average cost of capital.

Mergers and acquisitions remain one of our top, long-term priorities for disciplined capital deployment and enhancing growth strategy with focus on enhancing the breadth of our scientific capabilities principally within our core competencies, expanding our global scale, and maintaining our leadership position in advanced and emerging therapies. Our long-term strategy also includes growth through establishing relationships and exploring other opportunities and areas that have the potential to strengthen our broad-based portfolio of products and services. 

We also partner with a diverse set of leading venture capital firms around the world primarily investing in life sciences, health care and therapeutics with an emphasis on early-stage companies. Through these partnerships and close relationships, we gain insight into their company and asset portfolios and are thus able to promote our services for each of our businesses. We also view these partnerships as an investment in new and emerging sciences and technologies as they allow us to gain insights to cutting-edge capabilities. Thus, we have the opportunity to establish ourselves as a provider of choice for a unique client group that has emerged as biopharmaceutical companies rationalize and prioritize their development pipelines.

We routinely evaluate strategic fit and fundamental performance of our businesses. As part of this ongoing assessment, we may determine certain capital could be better deployed