Charles River Laboratories

Evidence suggests moderate pricing power that is temporarily constrained. Historically, CRL has achieved mid‑single digit price increases in parts of DSA and strong mix‑driven margins in Microbial Solutions, but management flagged DSA pricing as a headwind for 2025 as clients reprioritize pipelines.

Microbial Solutions’ consumables and instruments often carry defensible pricing due to validation and quality system lock‑in. Conversely, the cell and gene therapy CDMO has lost a commercial client and took a 215 million dollar goodwill impairment in 4Q24, demonstrating limited pricing and scale leverage there.

Net: latent pricing power in RMS and certain DSA modalities remains, but we do not underwrite outsized price‑led margin expansion near term.