Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, with regard to the project 'In vivo taste assessment of pharmaceutical compounds and formulations' in Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986: Non-technical summaries for project licences granted April – June 2025, published on 11 July, what assessment they have made of carrying out that project with consenting volunteers to test small, non-harmful amount of a drug formulation to gain detailed feedback on palatability.

The Home Office ensures, in all licences, that if alternative strategies can provide sufficient information to achieve the outcomes sought then animals are not licensed for use.

The gold standard for experiments using substances which are intended for human consumption is human subjects. However, at the early stages of the drug development process toxicological data in humans are often extremely limited or non-existent, which limits the use of human panels due to ethical and/or safety reasons. In this specific licence the aversiveness test is intended for substances in the early stages of drug development and can be critical for patient compliance. The rat Brief-Access Taste Aversion (BATA) test is, in the absence of a fully effective functioning e-tongue, the only current operative test to allow the assessment of the taste acceptance of oral medicines in the early stage of drug development where there is no known safety data.

The Government is committed to working towards a vision of phasing out the use of animals in science. The Government will publish a strategy that describes how it will accelerate the development and uptake of alternative methods to animal research and testing later this year.