Will Labour help us transition away from pre-clinical animal research?

In February 2024, the Conservative government announced its intention to accelerate the development and uptake of technologies to reduce the use of animals in science, promising publication of a transition strategy this summer.1 Hopes are high that Labour will honour this commitment since, according to its manifesto, the party aim to “partner with scientists, industry, and civil society as we work towards the phasing out of animal testing.” In our view, a transition away from reliance on animals in research cannot happen soon enough; we believe that pre-clinical animal research is impeding medical progress, wasting resources, and resulting in enormous unmet need for patients.Scientists in the US no longer have to use animals in the development of pharmaceuticals,2 and the US National Institutes of Health recently announced a new funding programme to accelerate the development of non-animal, human based approaches.3 These developments have arisen because decades of pre-clinical animal research…
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