Customers
In the UK, the overwhelming majority of beagles are used for regulatory tests, i.e. toxicology and safety testing. Therefore, MBR beagles are sold to contact laboratories conducting animal experiments for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agrochemical and chemical industries.
Labcorp
Labcorp is a multinational company with animal laboratories in more than 100 contries and a global annual revenue exceeding $13 billion. In the UK, it operates five sites: Huntingdon, Harrogate, Eye (Suffolk), Shardlow (Derbyshire) and York.
The Huntingdon and Harrogate sites regularly purchase beagle dogs from MBR for use in testing.
The Huntingdon laboratory has been operating since the early 1950s. Formerly known as Huntingdon Life Sciences, it was taken over by Labcorp in 2015. Covering more than 80 acres, it is the largest animal laboratory in the UK and employs over 1,000 staff. Each year, it is estimated that the facility uses more than 100,000 animals, including monkeys, dogs, minipigs, ferrets, rodents, birds, and fish.
Labcorp recently invested over £10 million to expand its inhalation unit, where masks are fitted to animals, including dogs, to force them to inhale chemicals and drugs.
MBR beagles being unloaded at Labcorp, Harrogate
The laboratory in Harrogate occupies a 23-acre site and employs more than 1,400 staff.
In 2021, workers wearing full chemical protective clothing were photographed moving MBR beagles from an Impex van into the laboratory and pushing a trolley of dead dogs in yellow plastic bags out of the facility. These dogs enter alive and only leave dead, inside bin bags.
Trolley of dead puppies being moved at Labcorp, Harrogate
Sequani
Sequani Laboratories specialises in safety and toxicology testing of chemicals, particularly agrochemicals such as pesticides and fertilisers. It has one single site located in Ledbury, Hertfordshire.
All of Sequani’s shares are held by Supersummer Services, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), a territory widely regarded as a tax haven. The business generates around $25.5 million in annual revenue.
The laboratory has been in operation since 1971, when it was known as Toxicol, and was acquired by Sequani in 2000. For more than 50 years, animals have suffered and died at this site.
After analysing all the Non-technical Summary licence (NTS) for the use of beagles, we believe this corresponds to Sequani’s NTS licence.
Charles River Laboratories
Charles River is an American multinational company with a global revenue of around $4 billion. It was first established in 1947 and now it has more than 80 laboratories across 21 countries.
In the UK, it operates approximately 13 sites, including Margate, Cambridge, Harlow, High Peak, Portishead, Saffron Walden, Stevenage, Keele, Canterbury, and Oxford in England, as well as Tranent and Ormiston in Scotland.
The Tranent laboratory is the site where MBR beagles are used. Spread over a 40-acre site, the laboratory, in operation since the early 1970s, conducts experiments not only on dogs but also on a variety of other species, including monkeys, minipigs, cows, guinea pigs, mice, rats, and horseshoe crabs.
Until 2023, many of the beagles used at Charles River were imported from Marshall Bioresources in the United States. Today, they are transported domestically in the back of Impex vans, enduring a six-hour journey across the country. In 2023 we received a harrowing testimony of a woman who worked at the beagle unit at Charles River in Trenant.
Horseshoe crabs, known as “living fossils,” are bled alive for a clotting agent found in their blue blood. Critics argue that this practice is both harmful and unnecessary, as a synthetic, non-animal alternative has been available globally for years.
Image provided by a whistleblower of Long-tailed macaques inside Charles River, Tranent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-Y2Z5sWKCUhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-Y2Z5sWKCU