What is a Contract Vivarium?
For early-stage biotechs who are on the path for in vivo studies but do not have access to a vivarium, outsourcing to a contract research organization (CRO) is not the only option available. An organization can keep their studies in-house and control their science in a contract vivarium (CV)
When looking at high failure rates of clinical stage trials, giving up control of studies can be a risky strategy. When outsourcing to a CRO, you're giving up control of your research because the CRO does the research, collects the study data, and processes the results. In the CV, founding scientists and their teams conduct and control their own studies in turnkey and fully-resourced vivarium facilities, which enables them to accelerate timelines, validate data sets, and increase the likelihood of reproducibility in later stage trials, all while staying on budget within the fixed-costs structure of the contract vivarium.
The rapidly emerging CV model offers a do-it-yourself solution for early- to mid-stage biotechs that gives them control of preclinical rodent studies, which in-turn significantly contributes to the validation of preclinical data sets, thus ensuring a greater likelihood of reproducibility in later-stage trials.
A contract vivarium is a turnkey animal research facility, AAALAC-accredited, and accessible to multiple companies for in vivo stage preclinical R&D, typically with rodents. By providing a fully equipped, managed, and staffed space for research, the CV model offers early-stage biotechs a high quality, high-potential strategy for early-stage drug development. In the contract vivarium, companies can focus time and resources on scientific discovery, while the CV handles everything else that is required to support and conduct preclinical animal studies.
Along with access to fully equipped and managed space for research, the CV model supports its clients with comprehensive services and compliance oversight that is highly specialized and required for in vivo studies, and which most startups and small biotechs do not employ or have access to within their organization. This level of service and infrastructure enables biotechs with limited resources to keep early-stage preclinical in vivo studies in-house.
In addition to regulatory compliance oversight (including IACUC), and veterinary and animal husbandry services, CV's offer in vivo technical services, which provides training and support for animal study procedures and breeding to benefit and enable client teams who might need an extra pair of hands or expertise to conduct their preclinical animal research.
Mispro offers extensive experience in contract vivarium operations and services, having grown a network of off-site vivarium facilities in key North American biotech hubs since its founding in 2003. Along with offering access to state-of-the-art vivarium research space, Mispro supports clients with comprehensive animal care, regulatory compliance oversight, and in vivo technical services.
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