Campaigning works: the acceptance, finally, by the government of the recommendation from the Animals in Science Committee to ban ‘forced swim’ tests – in which rodents are terrorised with death until mental or physical exhaustion – is modest evidence of that. And I hope we will see those regulations very quickly coming through the House of Lords.
But today in the House I’ll be looking much more broadly at animal testing, the outdated, ineffective method that’s still the go-to for drug development, despite better alternatives being increasingly available. I will be challenging the government to go faster on this systemic change.
A new approach: alternatives to animal testing
It’s a measure of the problem of conservatism in scientific systems – whatever individual scientists might want to do to change them, as many do – that the government has a duty to address.
This slow rate of change is despite some spectacular progress with the alternatives to animal testing. A study in the scientific journal Nature found that biotech firm Emulate’s liver-on-a-chip device was able to correctly identify 87% of drugs that carried a risk of liver toxicity in humans. Those drugs had already “passed” animal safety tests; non-human animal bodies are very different to ours.
At the Animal Free Research UK-backed centre at the University of Exeter, using human cells, Professor Lorna Harries and her team discovered important insights into diabetes treatment and prevention.
What are collectively known as New Approach Methodologies (NAM), including the use of artificial intelligence, computer modelling, organ-on-a-chip and the advanced use of human cells and tissues, are being developed at pace around the world, and if the UK wants to continue to hold its places as a biotech leader, it needs to do a lot more to catch up.
The Americans have leapt ahead with the FDA Modernization Act, which facilitates the use of non-animal methods within the drug testing process. In The Netherlands there’s a government Transition Programme for Innovation, while India’s New Drugs and Clinical Trial Rules authorises researchers to use human-specific methods such as organ-chips to test new drugs. Canada has passed a bill to phase out animal-based chemical toxicity testing and the European Commission has committed to a roadmap for phasing out animal tests.
Glacial progress in the UK
Here in the UK, the Department of Health and Social Care has confirmed that “there is no United Kingdom legislation that mandates animal testing”, but analysis by Cruelty Free International found that animal tests continue to be commonly used even when validated alternatives exist, and most testing is not for drug development.
In 2022, 2.76 million scientific ‘procedures’ involving living animals were carried out in Great Britain, 55% were for experimental purposes, while creating and breeding genetically altered animals accounted for the other 45% (and looking into that figure is on my to-do list). That represents a 10% decrease year-on-year, back to the level of 2002, but leaves us a very long way from ending the suffering, and ineffective science.
There are more promises than action. UKRI’s investment in alternatives in 2024-25 has doubled, yes, but to the far from generous level of £20mn, the government has promised a “plan to accelerate the development, validation and uptake of technologies and methods to reduce reliance on the use of animals in science”, by the summer. (Given current rate of government tardiness on promises, I won’t be holding my breath.)
There is also a promise to increase fees for licences to use animals in research, with a view to shifting the default away, and reviewing the standard duration of licences, to “introduce more challenge” into the system.
You’d have to say it is glacial evolution, rather than the kind of transformation that would be seen in a truly ‘world-leading’ (to quote the government’s favourite phrase) system.
A Human Specific Technologies Act
NAM is likely to greatly improve the productivity of research. Using generally animal testing, the likelihood of a cancer drug being approved and progressing from small phase 1 trials to larger clinical trials is less than 6%. Alzheimer’s disease has seen clinical trial failures of more than 99%. Human-specific techniques provide far more reliable predictions of whether drugs will be safe and effective.
Yes, this demands money, and money that should be directed to the full replacement of animals (rather than on ‘refinement and reduction’, for which money is still being spent).
Ultimately, we should be aiming for a Human Specific Technologies Act that would provide a practical framework for the long-term transition to non-animal technologies, setting a target year for a full transition from animal testing and regularly reporting to parliament on progress.
