| Industry | Health care |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1962 |
| Founder | William B. Cartmell |
| Headquarters | , United States |
| Website | wickhamlabs |
Wickham Laboratories Ltd is a contract testing laboratory that supports the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. Located in Hampshire, England, it was founded in 1962 and remains an independent company. [1]
The company was founded by veterinarian, William B. Cartmell, who established a veterinary practice at Wickham, Fareham, Hampshire in 1954. As the business grew, he developed facilities and animal care techniques, including the construction of an animal hospital along with founding another six branches, then an animal hospital. A laboratory facility was developed in order to improve treatment to animals. [1]
In 1962, Wickham Laboratories Ltd was incorporated as a separate company to provide contract testing services on behalf of pharmaceutical companies, doctors, farmers, and animal-feed manufacturers which included microbiology and chemistry testing. [1] Mr Cartmell remains the company's Managing Director.[ citation needed ]
Wickham Laboratories Ltd relocated to its current site at Hoeford Point in Gosport, in 2012. Shortly after the move, in 2015, Wickham Laboratories Ltd appointed a new CEO, Dr John McKenzie, The company currently employs around 130 staff. The facility is subject to regular compliance auditing by relevant regulatory authorities including the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).[ citation needed ]
Keith Mann and one other activist from the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) broke into Wickham Laboratories on 13 December 2003, and stole 695 mice that were being used to test Dysport, made from botulinum toxin. [3] This medicine is licensed in the UK to treat serious illnesses such as cerebral palsy. Symptoms of other illnesses the medicine treats include eye muscle contractions whereby a person cannot open their eyes, or suffering through chronic facial twitches and muscle spasms which can mean the inability to walk or move properly. Animals are used for research of this medicine where there is no alternative method. [4] The drug is used in cosmetic surgery clinics to erase frown lines. It has been illegal to use animals to test for cosmetic purposes in the UK since 1998. [5] Mann was arrested at his home and the mice were returned to the laboratory. [3] He argued in court that the tests carried out by Wickham Laboratories were illegal because the product was being tested for cosmetic purposes, which is banned in Britain. [5] The court rejected his defence, and found that the tests complied with British regulations because Dysport that was being tested is used for therapeutic purposes only. [6]
Mann initially received a verdict of 230 hours of community service with no jail time, but as he left the dock, proceeded to make threatening comments to Wickham Laboratories Ltd’s technical director at the time, Chris Bishop, and was immediately thereafter found in contempt of court and sentenced to 6 months in jail. [2] Melvyn Glintenkamp was given 170 hours of community service for aiding and abetting Mann by allowing him to keep the stolen mice in a caravan at his home. [6]
The Sunday Times published details in November 2009 of an eight-month undercover infiltration investigation conducted by the BUAV. [7] Following a year-long investigation into the report, the Home Office published its own conclusions [8] noting, “Licence and Certificate authorities to permit work under ASPA 1986 were, and are, in place at Wickham Laboratories... The authorities granted by the Home Office under ASPA were issued legitimately and with appropriate reference to current requirements for authorised medicinal products” [8] The home office ministerial statement said: “the majority of concerns raised by the BUAV in their report have not been substantiated”. [9]
The United States Food and Drug Administration is a federal agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food safety, tobacco products, caffeine products, dietary supplements, prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceutical drugs (medications), vaccines, biopharmaceuticals, blood transfusions, medical devices, electromagnetic radiation emitting devices (ERED), cosmetics, animal foods & feed and veterinary products.
Animal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and in vivo testing, is the use of non-human animals, such as model organisms, in experiments that seek to control the variables that affect the behavior or biological system under study. This approach can be contrasted with field studies in which animals are observed in their natural environments or habitats. Experimental research with animals is usually conducted in universities, medical schools, pharmaceutical companies, defense establishments, and commercial facilities that provide animal-testing services to the industry. The focus of animal testing varies on a continuum from pure research, focusing on developing fundamental knowledge of an organism, to applied research, which may focus on answering some questions of great practical importance, such as finding a cure for a disease. Examples of applied research include testing disease treatments, breeding, defense research, and toxicology, including cosmetics testing. In education, animal testing is sometimes a component of biology or psychology courses.
Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) was a contract research organisation (CRO) organized in Maryland and headquartered in East Millstone, New Jersey. It was founded in 1951 in Cambridgeshire, England. It had two laboratories in the United Kingdom and one in the United States. With over 1,600 employees, it was the largest non-clinical CRO in Europe and the third-largest non-clinical CRO in the world. In September 2015, Huntingdon Life Sciences, Harlan Laboratories, GFA, NDA Analytics and LSR associates merged into Envigo.
In the animal rights movement, cruelty-free is a label for products or activities that do not harm or kill animals anywhere in the world. Products tested on animals or made from animals are not considered cruelty-free, since these tests are often painful and cause the suffering and death of millions of animals every year.
Cruelty Free International is a British animal rights and advocacy group that campaigns for the abolition of all animal testing. It organises certification of cruelty-free products which are marked with the symbol of a leaping bunny.
Current good manufacturing practices (cGMP) are those conforming to the guidelines recommended by relevant agencies. Those agencies control the authorization and licensing of the manufacture and sale of food and beverages, cosmetics, pharmaceutical products, dietary supplements, and medical devices. These guidelines provide minimum requirements that a manufacturer must meet to assure that their products are consistently high in quality, from batch to batch, for their intended use.
Fortrea Holdings Inc. is a contract research organization organized in Delaware and headquartered in Durham, North Carolina with operations in 90 countries. Its customers are primarily in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device industries.
Keith Mann is a British animal rights campaigner and direct action activist who acted as a spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), and was alleged by police in 2005 to be a ringleader for the ALF. He was imprisoned twice, and is the author of From Dusk 'til Dawn: An Insider's View of the Growth of the Animal Liberation Movement (2007).
Shamrock Farm was the United Kingdom's only non-human primate importation and quarantine centre, located in Small Dole, near Henfield in West Sussex. The centre, owned by Bausch and Lomb and run by Charles River Laboratories, Inc. for Shamrock (GB) Ltd, provided animals to various laboratories and universities for use in animal testing. It was Europe's largest supplier of primates to laboratories, and held up to 350 monkeys at a time.
The Principles of Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) establish rules and criteria for a quality system that oversees the organizational processes and conditions in which non-clinical health and environmental safety studies are planned, conducted, monitored, recorded, reported, and archived. These principles apply to the non-clinical safety testing of substances found in various products to ensure the quality and integrity of the safety data submitted to regulatory authorities globally.
Alternatives to animal testing are the development and implementation of test methods that avoid the use of live animals. There is widespread agreement that a reduction in the number of animals used and the refinement of testing to reduce suffering should be important goals for the industries involved. Two major alternatives to in vivo animal testing are in vitro cell culture techniques and in silico computer simulation; however, some claim they are not true alternatives because simulations use data from prior animal experiments and cell cultures often require animal derived products, such as serum or cells. Others say that they cannot replace animals completely as they are unlikely to ever provide enough information about the complex interactions of living systems.
Nafovanny in Vietnam is the largest captive-breeding primate facility in the world. It supplies crab-eating Macaques to animal testing laboratories.
The European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & HealthCare (EDQM) is a Directorate and partial agreement of the Council of Europe that traces its origins and statutes to the Convention on the Elaboration of a European Pharmacopoeia.
Since the 1990s, several mass poisonings from toxic cough syrup have occurred in developing countries. In these cases, an ingredient in cough syrup, glycerine (glycerol), was replaced with diethylene glycol, a cheaper alternative to glycerine for industrial applications. Diethylene glycol is nephrotoxic and can result in multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS), especially in children.
Cosmetic testing on animals is a type of animal testing used to test the safety and hypoallergenic properties of cosmetic products for use by humans.
Animal testing regulations are guidelines that permit and control the use of non-human animals for scientific experimentation. They vary greatly around the world, but most governments aim to control the number of times individual animals may be used; the overall numbers used; and the degree of pain that may be inflicted without anesthetic.
Toxicology testing, also known as safety assessment, or toxicity testing, is the process of determining the degree to which a substance of interest negatively impacts the normal biological functions of an organism, given a certain exposure duration, route of exposure, and substance concentration.
Understanding Animal Research (UAR) is a British membership organisation formed in late 2008 through the merger of the Research Defence Society and the Coalition for Medical Progress. Its main aims are to "explain why animals are used in medical and scientific research. We aim to achieve a broad understanding of the humane use of animals in medical, veterinary, scientific and environmental research in the UK".
Harlan Sprague Dawley Inc. was a supplier of animals and other services to laboratories for the purpose of animal testing. It provided pre-clinical research tools and services for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agrochemicals, industrial chemical, and food industries.
European Partnership for Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing (EPAA) promotes the application of the 3Rs principles in meeting regulatory requirements for products such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, soaps, detergents and cosmetics. The EPAA covers research and development, as well as the use of 3Rs approaches in regulatory compliance and communication and dissemination.
