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US PHARMA corporation Charles River Laboratories has cancelled a deal to buy WuXi PharmaTech for $1.6b.

The purchase was originally announced in April and was reported at the time to be the largest ever foreign takeover in the Chinese pharmaceuticals industry. Several advisory groups, including Risk Metrics, Jana Partners and Glass Lewis & Co, recommended that Charles River shareholders reject the takeover plans. James Foster, Charles River’s chairman, president and ceo says that the board respects the views of its shareholders and will abide by its commitment not to proceed with major deals without their support.

Under the termination agreement, Charles River will pay WuXi a $30m breakup fee. Charles River’s board has also authorised the repurchase of $500m worth of its common stock.

Ge Li, WuXi’s ceo, says that he is “disappointed” that the sale has fallen through, but is not worried about the future of the company.

"Virtually all of the large global pharmaceutical companies, as well as hundreds of smaller pharmaceutical and biotech companies and many leading medical device companies, are our customers. We believe that strong trends for greater outsourcing and offshoring of R&D services will continue, and that WuXi, as the leading China-based contract research organisation, is well positioned to benefit from this powerful outsourcing trend for many years to come," he says.