Press release

Published: 14 July 2025

This is a groundbreaking decision by the world's largest biomedical funding organisation – it is time for a change of course in Germany too

Doctors Against Animal Experiments is delighted with the decision by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to stop funding research projects based exclusively on animal testing from July 2025. The NIH is the world's largest government funding organisation for biomedical research and from now on it will consistently focus on animal-free, human-relevant methods in future.

The announcement was made at a workshop on 7 July 2025, at which representatives from the NIH, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other regulatory agencies discussed strategies for the rapid introduction of modern, human-based test methods. The focus was on the ‘FDA Roadmap to Reducing Animal Testing in Preclinical Safety Studies’, a strategy paper for phasing out animal testing in drug development. The NIH plays a key role in this by funding and coordinating the development, validation and implementation of innovative, animal-free methods.

Previously, the NIH has issued funding opportunities that specifically called for the use of animals, such as using monkeys for HIV experiments or generating genetically modified mice. With the new regulation, such funding programmes will no longer exist. This should lead to fewer animals being used in experiments, as scientists will plan their studies accordingly in the future.

“We hope that, as a logical next step, the NIH will make it mandatory for all future funding applications to include only animal-free methods,” says Dr Dilyana Filipova, scientific officer at Doctors Against Animal Experiments.

Dr Nicole Kleinstreuer, Acting NIH Deputy Director, made it clear that the NIH could not achieve its goals, particularly the improvement of public health, with outdated animal experiments. She emphasised that only new technologies, transparency and innovation can bring progress. She also pointed out that the NIH not only invests in animal-free methods, but also creates the necessary infrastructure and partnerships to ensure lasting change. The NIH is committed to promoting the development and sustainable implementation of non-animal methods. This means that the entire research landscape in the USA is going to be oriented towards modern, human-based technologies. To this end, a dedicated NIH office has been announced to institutionalise the innovation, validation and application of non-animal methods.

The FDA also views animal testing critically. Dr Tracy Beth Høeg, Senior Advisor to the FDA, explained that animals are poor predictors of human responses and that the majority of drugs that are successfully tested on animals later fail in humans. In particular, she emphasised that the development of monoclonal antibodies, a specific type of drugs, usually involves 144 monkeys per drug - which is connected to very high costs. Nevertheless, these tests have no prospective significance regarding the safety or efficacy of the drugs.

With these measures, the USA is setting new global standards for ethical and modern research without animal testing. The aim is to create a robust infrastructure for animal-free methods and thus, to prevent going back to animal testing.

Dr Filipova criticises: “While the USA is moving decisively and at great speed towards the future and massively reducing funding for animal experiments, over 99% of public funding for biomedical research in Germany continues to flow into projects involving animal experiments.” It is high time that the federal government fundamentally and urgently changes its funding policy - otherwise Germany risks losing out in the international competition for innovative and ethically responsible biomedical research. “We are calling for public funds in Germany to finally be consistently invested in animal-free, future-oriented methods,” concludes Filipova.

References

NIH: NIH Funding Announcements to Align with NIH Initiative to Prioritize Human-based Research >> 10.07.2025 
FDA & NIH Workshop on Reducing Animal Testing >> 07.07.2025
FDA: “FDA Announces Plan to Phase Out Animal Testing Requirement for Monoclonal Antibodies and Other Drugs” >> 10.04.2025