Skip to main content

Written question asked by Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative) on Wednesday, 14 May 2025, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 19 May 2025 (named day). It was answered by Karin Smyth (Labour) on Monday, 19 May 2025 on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care.


NHS: Drugs

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will list those medicines used by the NHS that were subject to (a) animal and (b) non-animal testing in the UK as part of the pre-clinical testing process.

Answer

Compiling a list of all the products that were developed with and without animal testing would take the medicine regulator a significant and disproportionate amount of time and resources.

Whilst new medicines are usually tested in animals, unless there is an alternative validated method, the majority of medicines used by the National Health Service are generic products, and these are usually licensed without any animal testing.

The Government is supporting and accelerating advances in biomedical science and technologies to reduce reliance on the use of animals in research, and importantly to avoid some of the scientific limitations of animal models of human diseases.


Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
52363
Session
2024-26
Subjects
Animal experiments Drugs NHS Testing
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk