Drug testing labs face major monkey shortage - preventing medical research

Academics in life sciences are already facing delays of up to a year due to the challenge of sourcing monkeys. Photo / Getty Images

US labs are facing a monkey shortage that could delay vital medical research after an international smuggling ring was busted in Cambodia.

Last month, US federal prosecutors charged eight people with allegedly illegally poaching hundreds of endangered primates from Southeast Asia and shipping them to the US.

Among those charged were two Cambodian wildlife officials, who are accused of taking payments to facilitate the scheme, which allegedly took monkeys from national parks and protected areas in Cambodia and falsely labelled them as “captive bred”.

One of the officials – the deputy director of wildlife and biodiversity at Cambodia’s Forestry Administration – was arrested at John F. Kennedy international airport in New York.

If convicted, the eight suspects, six of whom belong to a “major primate supply organisation” based in Hong Kong and Cambodia, face up to five years in prison for conspiracy and up to 20 years for the smuggling charges.

According to the FT, two of the largest suppliers of lab monkeys to the pharmaceutical industry, US-listed Charles River and Inotiv, have now warned investors that the investigation could disrupt imports of animals required by regulators for early research on the safety of drugs.

‘It is of crucial importance’

“If companies and academic researchers can’t get the non-human primate [monkeys] research models they need — then the work stops. You can say goodbye to new vaccines and drugs,” Matthew Bailey, president at the National Association for Biomedical Research, an industry group, told the FT.

“It is of crucial importance to public health and national security.”

Academics in life sciences are already facing delays of up to a year due to the challenge of sourcing monkeys, with scientists urging the US government to increase investment in lab breeding programmes.

The labs traditionally use long-tailed macaques for drug testing. Despite being endangered, the monkeys are normally bred in captivity in the US or abroad, but pressures in the market led to wild monkeys being sourced illegally.

The shortfall grew amid a surge in demand for non-human primates during the rushed search for vaccines to combat the pandemic and a 2020 ban on the sale of wild animals by China – previously one of the biggest global exporters of animals for experiments.

This weekend, animal activists renewed calls for the US government to stop importing non-human primates for laboratory use.

Documents obtained by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) from the American Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed that deadly pathogenic agents, zoonotic bacteria and viruses, including one deemed to be a bioterrorism risk, had entered the country with monkeys imported from Asia between 2019 and 2021, reported the Guardian.