In November 2025, the UK government launched the first strategy of its kind to commit to phasing out all forms of animal testing, including regulatory tests and experiments for biomedical, basic and discovery research. This roadmap could mark the beginning of the end for experiments on animals in the UK – but only if it is delivered properly.
Right now, that is far from guaranteed.
Without urgent, meaningful action, and without the involvement of animal protection organisations such as PETA, the strategy risks stalling, allowing animals to continue to suffer and die in the name of ‘science’. In UK laboratories mice, rats, rabbits, dogs, monkeys, pigs, and other animals are routinely restrained, poisoned, burned, cut open, injected with chemicals, torn apart, and killed. This cruelty must stop now.
That’s why PETA has written an open letter calling on the government to strengthen how this roadmap is implemented – and we need you to add your name today.
Animals Should Come First
To succeed, the UK strategy to phase out animal testing must be shaped by those who put animals first.
Animal protection organisations such as PETA are the only stakeholders whose priority is the animals themselves. PETA scientists have spent decades working to end animal experimentation and to advance humane, species-relevant research methods that do not use animals.
Our expertise is vital – and it must not be sidelined.
Yet current plans risk excluding animal protection NGOs from key decision making processes, meaning the very groups committed to fully ending the suffering animals experience in UK laboratories may be shut out of delivering the strategy.
What We’re Calling For
Through this open letter, PETA is urging the Government to take concrete steps to ensure the roadmap moves beyond rhetoric and genuinely delivers on ending animal testing.
With the right voices at the table, this roadmap can succeed – and we can finally end experiments on animals.
Open Letter
To: The UK government,
In UK laboratories, experimenters routinely restrain, poison, burn, and wound mice, rats, rabbits, dogs, monkeys, pigs, and other animals in UK laboratories. This cruelty must stop now.
The UK Government’s Strategy to Replace Animals in Science is a welcome step towards state-of-the-art, biologically relevant science. To ensure it delivers real and lasting change to end the suffering of animals in experiments, its implementation must be inclusive, ambitious, and engage with both the technical and cultural challenges of transitioning away from animal experimentation.
Animal protection organisations, including PETA, must play a vital role in making the strategy a reality. PETA scientists are part of a global network of experts working to advance non-animal methods across toxicology, biomedical research, and drug development. They collaborate with regulators, industry, and international bodies to help identify where tests using animals can and should be replaced. Crucially, animal protection organisations are the only stakeholders whose purpose is to represent the interests of animals used in experiments and the public who overwhelmingly want to see an end to animal testing.
We therefore call on the Government to strengthen the delivery of the Strategy by taking the following actions:
1. Formally include animal protection organisations, such as PETA, in strategy delivery, particularly through representation on the Alternative Methods Committee.
2. Update research priority areas to explicitly include disease models, such as sepsis research, and discovery research, using PETA’s Research Modernisation Deal, which identifies more than 40 areas where animal use can be ended immediately, reduced dramatically, or prioritised for replacement.
3. Set clear and enforceable mechanisms for replacement. This includes transparent processes for identifying tests to be replaced in the short- and long-term; clarity on how tests on animals will be formally eliminated; and robust monitoring, enforcement, and consequences when targets are not met.
4. Require research institutions to develop and publish their own individualised phase-out plans, with measurable milestones and timelines.
5. Embed cultural change and change-management policies as core components of strategy delivery, recognising the need to address entrenched biases that favour the use of animals in discovery research.
Meaningful inclusion, clear accountability, and a willingness to challenge entrenched practices are essential if the UK is to lead the global transition to humane, biologically relevant science.
Yours sincerely,