Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking to help phase out the use of animals for antibody production.

The Government is committed to the development of non-animal alternatives and will publish a strategy to support their development, validation and adoption later this year.

The Government-funded National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) has a collaborative programme of work investigating accelerating the adoption of non-animal derived antibodies and resources to support researchers to adopt these technologies.

Further steps supporting alternative methods, including any targets to phase out specific applications of animal testing, will be outlined in the upcoming strategy.