Massachusetts-based CRO Charles River Laboratories International has acquired Cleveland-based ChanTest, a provider of specialized laboratory testing services for drug development, from Wellesley, Mass.-based Ampersand Capital Partners, in an all-cash transaction.

ChanTest specializes in measuring interactions between drug candidates and proteins known as ion channels. Ion channels represent an important class of drug targets, and also are important because of cardiac safety risks that can result from unintended interactions between certain drugs and ion channels. In the 1990s, ChanTest founder Arthur Brown, M.D., Ph.D., discovered the connection between ion channels and cardiac risk, and in 1998 Brown founded ChanTest to help pharma and biotech companies screen for these interactions early in the drug development process.

Ampersand made a growth equity investment in ChanTest in 2007 and has worked with management to expand and diversify the business. ChanTest currently has one of the most complete offerings of ion channel services and products in the industry.