Charles River Laboratories Raises Second Quarter Earnings Guidance.

Business/Technology Editors & Health/Medical Writers

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WILMINGTON, Mass.--(BW HealthWire)--June 14, 2001

Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. (NYSE: CRL) announced today that it is raising its previous guidance on estimated earnings per share performance for the second quarter.

The Company estimates second quarter earnings per fully-diluted share (EPS) in the range of $0.21 to $0.22. This estimate reflects an increase relative to the Company's guidance of May 3, 2001 of $0.18 to $0.20 for EPS. As the Company has not yet revised its earnings estimates for the third and fourth quarters, the Company's full year EPS estimate would now fall in the range of $0.75 to $0.78, versus earlier guidance of $0.72 to $0.76. This updated guidance for EPS exceeds the consensus First Call estimates. The Company also expects second quarter sales to slightly exceed the high end of the earlier guidance range of $110 million to $114 million. The Company's estimates are before extraordinary items, based on current exchange rates, and subject to the qualifications on "forward looking" guidance set forth below.

James C. Foster, CEO, commented: "With two months of the second quarter now complete, we're pleased to see better than anticipated earnings in many of our product lines and services offerings. We continue to be particularly pleased with the earnings strength in our core US research models business, along with continued growth in earnings in our drug discovery and development services activities. Our first quarter acquisitions of Pathology Associates International and Primedica are also contributing nicely to earnings and sales, which we believe reflects the impact of our ongoing integration programs."

Charles River Laboratories, based in Wilmington, Massachusetts, is a leading provider of critical research tools and integrated support services that enable innovative and efficient drug discovery and development. The Company is the global leader in providing the animal research models required in research and development for new drugs, devices and therapies. The Company also offers a broad and growing portfolio of biomedical products and services that enable customers to reduce cost, increase speed, and enhance productivity and effectiveness in drug discovery and development. Charles River's customer base spans over 50 countries, and includes all of the major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as many leading hospitals and academic institutions. The Company operates 76 facilities in 15 countries worldwide.

This document contains "forward looking statements." Such statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those stated or implied by the forward looking statements, including acquisition integration risks, special interest groups, contaminations, industry trends, new displacement technologies, outsourcing trends, USDA and FDA regulation, changes in law, special interests groups, continued availability of products and supplies, personnel and control, and others that are described in the Risk Factors contained in Company's Registration Statement of Form S-3, as filed on March 15, 2001. The Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update forward looking statements, and otherwise claims the safe harbor protections for forward looking statements afforded under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Investors can access a live webcast of the second quarter 2001 earnings conference call through a link that will be posted on the investor page of the Charles River Laboratories website, http://www.criver.com. The conference call will be held on Friday, August 3, 2001 at 8:30 a.m. (Boston time).