Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) is returning its HQ to the UK after being forced to move to Delaware in the US eight years ago. “We are an English company – we shouldn’t be based in America,” Andrew Baker, chairman and CEO is reported saying in the Telegraph.
HLS has survived despite being the subject of ongoing attacks from animal rights activists. The company does contract research for testing pharmaceuticals and agricultural chemicals, among other things, on animals. HLS was forced to relocate its headquarters to the US in 2001 after the Royal Bank of Scotland (now in a whole load of unrelated trouble) cut ties with the company because their staff were threatened. A list of shareholders in the company was obtained by animal rights activists, and many of those shareholders got rid of the shares. Unable to raise funds or hold a bank account in the UK apart from with the Bank of England, HLS moved to the US where shareholders were given more anonymity.
But recent trials of some of the activists have made the atmosphere in the UK better for HLS to return, although the economic climate is still pretty hostile.
The return coincides with the sentencing of seven members of SHAC (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty), an animal rights group, said to be part of the Animal Liberation Front. The activists were jailed for terms between four and eleven years for blackmailing and terrorising the families of employees of companies that supplied HLS (Times).
Scientists involved in animal testing have come out in favour of the sentencing, Simon Festing, chief executive of, Understanding Animal Research, an organisation set up to provide information about what animal tests involve and why they are needed, said: “These sentences signal the end of the long dark era of animal rights extremism. Everyone now knows that trying to intimidate people into abandoning vital medical research using animals will fail.”
Philip Wright, director of science and technology at the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, said: “The length of the sentences represents the seriousness of the intimidation and harassment that were committed by these people – as noted by the judge…The research-based pharmaceutical industry remains committed to minimising the use of animals in research. However, for the moment, they remain an essential element for the discovery and development of new medicines and where they are used good welfare practice is very important.”
Despite the court case, reports from late December suggest that HLS is still a target for animal rights activists. Whether the bold move by the HLS board will spur the activists into further action remains to be seen.