The British government body for alternatives to animal testing, the NC3Rs, has announced that it will be taking forward a project with industry to look at the use of dogs and monkeys in drug testing.

Dogs and monkeys are currently used in cruel experiments to test new medicines after tests on mice and rats. At least 2,454 dogs and 1,330 monkeys are used in the UK alone every year for this purpose.

The public do not support the use of dogs and monkeys in testing and we have campaigned against their use for many years.

The announcement by the NC3Rs follows ground breaking research we conducted that demonstrated that the absence of toxicity in animals provides no significant, additional insight into whether a new medicine will also be safe for humans.

We have been calling on governmental and industry bodies to take up our concerns and repeat the exercise with their own data, so we are delighted to hear that the NC3Rs will be working with drug industry body the ABPI to review additional testing using dogs and monkeys.

We are calling on the NC3Rs to involve our expert scientists in the project to ensure that this important research is as transparent as possible so that the public can be confident in the results.

Read why using animals to test new medicine for humans is not scientifically justifiable.