By Elie Dolgin

Drug companies in the EU are increasingly turning to nonanimal strategies to test medicines, but the number of animals used for basic research is on the rise, according to statistics published 30 September by the European Commission.

Although the total number of animals used for scientific purposes in the EU’s 27 member states has held steady at around 12 million per year, this overall figure masks shifting trends in animal experimentation. The European Commission report, which documents data submitted for 2008, shows that studies investigating basic biological principles used approximately 4.5 million research animals—up by more than half a million from 2005. In contrast, the number of animals used in the drug discovery pipeline for human and veterinary medicines dropped by more than a million to 2.7 million animals over the same period. Toxicology testing remained constant at about 1 million animals. (Click here to continue reading)

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