UK to replace animal testing with lab-grown human organs
Key Points
- The government has announced a £22 million plan to replace animal testing with lab-grown human organs for medical research purposes.
- The testing hub will be based on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus
- The hub will and share build 'organoids' - simplified miniature versions of a human gut, tumour, or brain.
- Universities and drug companies will be able to use this research in their own labs to work out which medicines are worth pursuing.
The government has announced a £22 million plan to replace animal testing with lab-grown human organs for medical research purposes.
Science Minister Chris McDonald announced the change on Wednesday (12 August), noting that the testing hub will be based on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, with co-leads at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and the Wellcome Sanger Institute.
The hub will and share build ‘organoids’ – effectively simplified miniature versions of a human gut, tumour, or brain – which will be grown from cells donated by NHS patients.
Because organoids keep the same features as the donor’s biology, researchers are able to see how a real person might respond to a drug or treatment.
Universities and drug companies will be able to use this research in their own labs to work out which medicines are worth pursuing. This in turn should reduce the amount of time it takes for new medicines and treatments to reach the market.
Cancer and inflammatory bowel diseases are two conditions which are expected to directly be addressed by the shift to organoid research.
“Today marks another significant step forward in the UK’s move away from animal testing in science and research,” said McDonald.
“This is all about backing our world-leading researchers and innovators to improve lives, giving them the tools they need to deliver more effective treatments for horrendous diseases like cancer, while also preventing the need for animal testing wherever possible.”
Some of the projects which will form part of the new research include:
- CN Bio Innovations is building working working versions of human organs small enough to fit on a microscope slide, to track how a drug moves through the body.
- VivoSphere UK is growing human heart-like tissue in the lab to spot dangerous side effects earlier.
- Ioteach is developing PKBridge, an AI platform which predicts how a medicine moves through the human body from lab data alone.
- CamGene Therapeutics is developing lab-grown ear models for hearing loss therapies, and BiominX is building a miniature model of beating human heart tissue.
- Biofoundry Energy is targeting a reduction of more than 50% in cardiovascular safety studies using dogs and non-human primates, and InoCardia is testing whether a regulator-approved non-animal alternative can replace those studies outright.
Home Office figures published in July shows 2,537,507 procedures on living animals in Great Britain in 2025, down 3.8% on 2024 and the lowest total since the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act came into force in 1986.
