Press Announcements > Statement by FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., on efforts to reduce animal testing through a study aimed at eliminating the use of dogs in certain trials

Press Announcements > Statement by FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., on efforts to reduce animal testing through a study aimed at eliminating the use of dogs in certain trials





Statement by FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., on efforts to reduce animal testing through a study aimed at eliminating the use of dogs in certain trials

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is committed to animal welfare in research by reducing, replacing and/or refining the use of animals in research, whenever possible. We’re taking a step today to propose a study that, once completed, could provide a way for animal drug developers to conduct certain types of research without the use of dogs. 

The aim is this: by doing a single study to help establish a non-animal based model, we can potentially replace much of the need to use dogs in future trials with new informatics tools. In short, our goal is to do one single study involving a small number of dogs—where the dogs will only be subject to minimally invasive blood sampling, and adopted as pets at the completion of the short trial—to eliminate the need for the use of dogs in certain types of ...