Charles River Celebrates Thirty Years of Biotech Innovation
September 17, 2026
San Diego · September 14–16, 2026
Charles River celebrated the 30th edition of its Biotech Symposium this week at the San Diego Mission Bay Resort, bringing together scientists, toxicologists, regulatory specialists, drug development professionals, and thought leaders to advance biotherapeutic innovation.
Charles River, a global contract research organization (CRO), is dedicated to helping researchers and companies accelerate biopharmaceutical drug discovery, research, nonclinical development, and safe drug manufacturing.
One of few drug development forums that focus on unpublished preclinical work in progress, the symposium is highly valued as it provides an interactive setting over three days for discussions among scientists working at the forefront of therapeutics. And highlight of the symposium, the “Think and Drink” session, encourages creative problem solving.
Much of what gets discussed there does not travel far beyond the room: nonclinical development stories are among the hardest for companies to clear for public discussion, which is part of what makes the event useful to the people who attend it.
The Symposium extended Big4Bio access to Monday’s session, where Meg Gill, founder of Golden Road Brewing, and now of the Sweet Geej Foundation, described building an accelerated, single-patient drug-development program for her seven-year-old daughter. Ten months on from diagnosis, the program has a lead candidate, a validated patient mutation model, a completed FDA pre-IND interaction, and its first Charles River study beginning the following day.
It was an unusually candid talk for a technical audience, and a useful reminder of who is at the other end of a development timeline.
The anniversary was marked across the week, with a welcome reception on Sunday evening and a 30th anniversary celebration on Tuesday.
Big4Bio thanks Charles River for extending media access to the symposium.