Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what representations his Department has received on animal modellers’ use of reductionism for medicinal tests.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the competent authority responsible for issuing marketing authorisations (product licences) and approving clinical trial authorisation applications for medicinal products in the United Kingdom, already encourages the development and use of newer tests and alternatives to animal tests. There are ongoing discussions about newer technologies involving alternatives to animals and these are being embraced by industry and regulators. However, it does take time for these methods to become adequately validated, established and accepted worldwide.