Animal welfare in biopharmaceutical research

UCB recognises and takes seriously public concerns about animal research. Currently, using animals in the development of drugs is necessary for scientific, legal and regulatory reasons: we would not be able to develop innovative medicines without some level of animal testing.

UCB is using animals appropriately and responsibly as well as complying with all applicable laws and industry standards. This commitment applies to all UCB employees and external contractors.

UCB is committed to the research and development of medicines to improve the lives of patients with a variety of serious conditions. Before any new medicine can be administered to a patient, sufficient evidence for the potential benefit and impact on patient safety must be provided. By law, some of these tests must be carried out in animals and new medicines will only be given to humans once these tests have been successfully completed.

Animals are only used in our drug development programmes when absolutely necessary to generate key data and where no suitable alternatives exist. Of the animals UCB researchers and partners use in experiments, over 99% are rodents.