Medical Research Techniques

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to promote the use of human-specific medical research techniques, such as “organ-on-a-chip” and computer modelling, in place of animal testing.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (Viscount Camrose) (Con)]

The Government provide significant funding for the development of these technologies through UKRI, primarily to the National Centre for the Replacement, Reduction and Refinement of Animals in Research. We are doubling our investment in this area next year to £20 million and this summer the Government will publish a plan to accelerate the development, validation and uptake of methods to reduce reliance on the use of animals in science.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I thank the noble Lord the Minister for his Answer, but of course animal testing is not working well. Less than 6% of cancer drugs proceed past the first small phase 1 trials, and more than 99% of Alzheimer’s drugs have failed. There are some very exciting possibilities, such as the liver-on-a-chip device that correctly identified 87% of drugs that caused liver toxicity after they passed animal tests. Many other countries are racing ahead on this: the USA has passed the FDA Modernization Act, the Netherlands has a transition programme and India has new rules for drug trials. Do we not need to go much further and look towards legislative change and a much bigger injection of funds to see real progress if we are to be world-leading in the future in this biotechnology field?

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

That is a wide-ranging question, and I will do my best to cover some of those points. With respect to the effectiveness of clinical trials, on the whole they cannot take place without toxicology trials and most of those, sadly, have to be done on animals. We very much welcome any technology that allows for in silico methods of assessing toxicology and it is true that more of those are emerging, but they have to be validated in order to be assumed safe and usable in clinical trials.

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[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

Yes, indeed; the economic potential is absolutely enormous. As with any medical devices, they need to be put through proper pharma-covigilance procedures, validation and testing, to make sure that by the time we are ready for clinical trials, all the toxicology testing has been properly done. Where it is possible to find an alternative to animal testing, that should always be followed. We always aim to use the minimum number of animals for the scientific benefit to be achieved and minimise the potential harm to animals for that benefit.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in responding to me the Minister referred to the apparent necessity of animals for toxicity tests. Of course, the case I had cited was one where liver drugs had passed animal toxicity tests and then were found to have problems with a human-specific technology. Canada has passed a Bill to phase out animal-based chemical toxicity testing and the European Commission is committed to developing a road map in that direction. As the noble Baroness on the Front Bench said, human-specific technologies have enormous potential. Will the Government look at getting an Act to provide a framework so that the UK could get ahead in this area and end toxicology testing on animals, as other countries are looking to do?

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

The noble Baroness mentioned an Act—there are widespread protections under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act. We have the three-tier licensing system, including significant training and assessment for licensees, and a range of other safeguards. Different jurisdictions are taking a range of approaches to this; I am not aware of any jurisdiction that has yet been able to set a timeline for the absolute removal of animal tests because, sadly, they do remain critical for the development of medicines.