GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK) is a British multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in London, England. Established in 2000 by a merger of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham, GSK was the world's sixth largest pharmaceutical company according to Forbes as of 2019, after Pfizer, Novartis, Roche, Sanofi, and Merck & Co. GSK is the tenth largest pharmaceutical company and #296 on the 2019 Fortune 500, ranked behind other pharmaceutical companies including China Resources, Johnson & Johnson, Roche, Sinopharm, Pfizer, Novartis, Bayer, Merck, and Sanofi.
Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) is a contract research organisation (CRO) founded in 1951 in Cambridgeshire, England. It has two laboratories in the United Kingdom and one in the United States. With over 1,600 staff, it is now the largest non-clinical CRO in Europe. In September 2015, Huntingdon Life Sciences, Harlan Laboratories, GFA, NDA Analytics and LSR associates merged into Envigo.
Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) was an international animal rights campaign to close down Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), Europe's largest contract animal-testing laboratory. SHAC ended its campaign in August 2014. HLS tests medical and non-medical substances on around 75,000 animals every year, from rats to primates. It has been the subject of several major leaks or undercover investigations by activists and reporters since 1989.
Covance Inc. is a contract research organization (CRO) headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey, providing nonclinical, preclinical, clinical and commercialization services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. The company is owned by Labcorp and employs more than 26,000 people worldwide. According to its website, it is one of the largest companies of its kind in the world, with annual revenues of over $2 billion. It claims to provide the world's largest central laboratory network. It became a publicly traded company in 1997 after being spun off by Corning Incorporated in 1996. In 2018, the Covance parent company, Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (Labcorp), was rated one of the best places to work for LGBTQ equality by the Human Rights Campaign. Covance has been subject to harassment from animal rights groups for its animal testing procedures.
Chiron Corporation was an American multinational biotechnology firm founded in 1981, based in Emeryville, California, that was acquired by Novartis on April 20, 2006. It had offices and facilities in eighteen countries on five continents. Chiron's business and research was in three main areas: biopharmaceuticals, vaccines, and blood testing. Chiron's vaccines and blood testing units were combined to form Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, while Chiron BioPharmaceuticals was integrated into Novartis Pharmaceuticals. In 2014, Novartis completed the sale of its blood transfusion diagnostics unit to Grifols and announced agreements for the sale of its vaccines unit to GlaxoSmithKline.
Brian Cass is the managing director of Huntingdon Life Sciences, a contract research organisation company based in Huntingdon in the United Kingdom and New Jersey in the United States. Before moving to Huntingdon Life Sciences, Cass was the managing director of Covance Laboratories Ltd. He was awarded a CBE in 2002.
Shamrock Farm was the United Kingdom's only non-human primate importation and quarantine centre, located in Small Dole, near Henfield in West Sussex. The centre, owned by Bausch and Lomb and run by Charles River Laboratories, Inc. for Shamrock (GB) Ltd, provided animals to various laboratories and universities for use in animal testing. It was Europe's largest supplier of primates to laboratories, and held up to 350 monkeys at a time.
SPEAK is a British animal rights group working to end animal testing in the UK.
Pro-Test was a British group that promoted and supported animal testing in medical research. It was founded on 29 January 2006 to counter SPEAK, an animal-rights campaign opposing the construction by Oxford University of a biomedical and animal-research facility, which SPEAK believes may include a primate-testing centre. Pro-Test held its first rally on 25 February 2006, attracting hundreds in support of the research facility and opposed by a smaller number of anti-lab demonstrators.
Nicolas Atwood is an American animal rights activist based in West Palm Beach, Florida. He maintains the Malaysia-registered Bite Back direct-action website, which is associated with the Animal Liberation Front.
The People's Petition was an online campaign to express support for medical experimentation using animals in the United Kingdom. Within a year of launch the number of signatures exceeded 21,850 and included Tony Blair, the then-serving Prime Minister.
The international trade in primates sees 32,000 wild non-human primates (NHPs) trapped and sold on the international market every year. They are sold mostly for use in animal testing, but also for food, for exhibition in zoos and circuses, and for private use as companion animals.
Experiments involving non-human primates (NHPs) include toxicity testing for medical and non-medical substances; studies of infectious disease, such as HIV and hepatitis; neurological studies; behavior and cognition; reproduction; genetics; and xenotransplantation. Around 65,000 NHPs are used every year in the United States, and around 7,000 across the European Union. Most are purpose-bred, while some are caught in the wild.
This is a time line of Animal Liberation Front (ALF) actions since its formation in 1976 until 1999.
The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) is an international, decentralized political and social resistance movement led by Ronnie Lee that engages in and promotes non-violent direct action in protest against incidents of animal cruelty. It originated in the 1970s from the Bands of Mercy. Participants state it is a modern-day Underground Railroad, removing animals from laboratories and farms, destroying facilities, arranging safe houses, veterinary care and operating sanctuaries where the animals subsequently live. Critics have labelled them as terrorists.
Mel Broughton is a British landscape gardener and arsonist who has risen to public prominence due to a "terrorist campaign" aimed at preventing the construction of a new research laboratory at Oxford University. He was the co-founder in 2004, with Robert Cogswell, of SPEAK, The Voice for the Animals, a campaign to stop animal testing in Britain, which is focused on opposition to a new animal laboratory at Oxford University.
Heather Nicholson is a British animal rights activist.
Harlan Sprague Dawley Inc. is a supplier of animals and other services to laboratories for the purpose of animal testing. It provides pre-clinical research tools and services for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agrochemicals, industrial chemical, and food industries.
The pharmaceutical industry in the United Kingdom directly employs around 73,000 people and in 2007 contributed £8.4 billion to the UK's GDP and invested a total of £3.9 billion in research and development. In 2007 exports of pharmaceutical products from the UK totalled £14.6 billion, creating a trade surplus in pharmaceutical products of £4.3 billion.
Animal welfare and rights in the People's Republic of China is a topic of growing interest. China has had limited animal protections by international standards, and animal-rights activists have condemned the treatment of animals in the country. Movements towards animal welfare and animal rights are expanding in China, including among homegrown Chinese activists.
