Thanks for contacting me about the use of dogs in experiments.
In the UK, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency is the responsible authority for the assessment and licensing of medical products. EU pharmaceutical legislation requires that before a new medicine is granted a licence, a battery of tests, using both animal and non-animal methods, are conducted to establish the toxicity profiles for the medicine. The legislation requires that new medicines are generally tested in a rodent and a non-rodent species before human clinical trials can begin. As a result of adverse findings from animal studies, a large number of drug candidates do not progress to being tested in humans.
I understand your concern for the welfare of dogs, but this testing is undertaken to provide assurance of the safety of medicines before they are given to humans. Removing testing could compromise human safety, which I do think would be unacceptable. Dogs are still important in the development and safety testing of new medicines...
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