New CRO Triangle Research Labs formed in Hamner joint venture

The contract research arm of biotechnology company GigaCyte is moving from Connecticut to North Carolina to form a new drug research joint venture with The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences.

Triangle Research Labs, or TRL, will focus on screening drug compounds before they go into clinical studies. This predictive toxicity testing can quickly identify toxic compounds, which saves drug companies time and money in drug discovery and development.

The Hamner, a nonprofit research organization with expertise in liver toxicity research, has joined with Charlottesville, Virginia investment group PBM Capital Group to form the TRL joint venture. TRL will be located at The Hamner’s campus in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. No financial terms of the arrangement were disclosed. PBM portfolio company GigaCyte is a biotechnology company that provides biotech and pharmaceutical companies and research centers with resources supporting research, drug discovery and preclinical work.

TRL will be led by Ivin Silver, former GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK) director of drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics. He will be joined by Shiloh Barfield, former vice president of sales and marketing for CellzDirect, a Durham firm that provides testing products that companies can use to speed their drug development efforts. Edward LeCluyse, a senior research investigator in the Institute for Chemical Safety Sciences at The Hamner and an adjunct professor in the toxicology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will supervise the research and development programs.

“It is our belief that this research collaboration will lead to innovative science and advances in developing and gaining adoption of the next generation of predictive tools to aid in chemical toxicology and drug discovery and development,” PBM Capital CEO Paul Manning said in a prepared statement. “We are pleased that the science being developed at our GigaCyte subsidiary can contribute to these advances.”