World Leadership

There is an international movement away from using animals in experiments, which reflects the growing consensus in the scientific community that using animals in basic biomedical research or for regulatory assessment requirements is neither ethical nor efficacious. Australia, the EU, Japan, New Zealand, and the U.K. have all banned or limited the use of great apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans) in experimentation, and the U.S. no longer awards federal funding for experiments involving chimpanzees.¹

The infographic on this page highlights some of the major milestones in the global transition away from experiments on animals and toward non-animal research that have taken place since 2013. PETA scientists have played a part in most of these developments, beginning with a 2016 report requested by the Netherlands National Committee for the protection of animals used for scientific purposes, which used information from PETA scientists to publish an advisory report on the country’s transition to animal-free innovation. Subsequently, the Transition Programme for Innovation without the use of animals was established, aiming to bring together stakeholders and offer a platform for identifying and developing activities to increase the pace of this transition.² PETA’s report for the Netherlands committee became the original Research Modernization Deal.

In 2021, after receiving a European version of the Research Modernization Deal by PETA entities, members of the European Parliament almost unanimously supported a motion for a resolution calling on the European Commission to develop an action plan—with a timeline and milestones—to phase out experiments on animals and accelerate the transition to innovation without the use of animals in research, regulatory testing, and education.³ PETA entities have also played a role in more recent developments in the EU, India, and the U.K.

In the U.S. in late 2022, President Joe Biden signed the PETA-supported FDA Modernization Act 2.0 into law,⁴ providing the FDA with the statutory authority to accept data from non-animal testing methods in investigational new drug applications, removing the long-held assumption that tests on animals are required before a drug can proceed to clinical trials.

The following year, the NIH Advisory Committee to the Director Working Group on Catalyzing the Development and Use of Novel Alternative Methods to Advance Biomedical Research delivered its findings on how NIH can better support non-animal methods.⁵ The working group’s advice echoed PETA scientists’ many recommendations over the years⁶ and were promptly accepted by NIH Director Monica Bertagnolli in early 2024⁷ A new NIH program focusing on the development, standardization, and validation of non-animal methods, called Complement-ARIE, was launched by the NIH Common Fund, finally signaling some progress at the long-stagnant agency. But the scale of this new program pales in comparison to what NIH still spends on poorly translatable experiments on animals. The proposed budget for Complement-ARIE was only $35 million for FY25,⁸ a mere 0.07% of NIH’s total FY25 budget of $50.1 billion⁹ and significantly less than what the agency would typically be expected to spend on experiments on animals in that time.¹⁰

2025-2026: American Progress

On April 10, 2025, the FDA announced plans to phase out animal testing requirements for drugs, including the development of monoclonal antibodies.¹¹ Monoclonal antibodies are used in research and to treat a variety of diseases. This policy change could spare tens of thousands of animals each year. PETA scientists have done groundbreaking work in this area, including funding the development of non-animal antibodies to fight infection.¹²¹³¹⁴

On April 29, NIH announced a plan to move funding away from animal experimentation and toward cutting-edge non-animal research methods.¹⁵ NIH’s change in priorities reflects persistent advocacy and expert guidance from PETA and other experts. NIH’s plan adopts several recommendations from Research Modernization NOW, including expanding funding, training, and infrastructure for non-animal methods. The agency vowed to work toward mitigating animal methods bias in grant review panels—a problem that PETA scientists documented in a first-of-its-kind study¹⁶—and to include more non-animal methods experts on these committees.

On July 7, NIH announced that it will stop asking researchers to do animal-only experiments and that all new funding solicited by the agency will include the option to use non-animal methods. On September 25, NIH launched the Standardized Organoid Modeling Center, a national resource for human organoid models.¹⁷ PETA has frequently advocated for the agency to create such hubs for human-based, in vitro technologies as a way to accelerate the continued improvement and validation of complex cellular models and provide technical support to scientists throughout the U.S. Other aspects of NIH’s plan include the establishment of an agency-wide office and public reporting on its progress.

Other 2025 progress includes the Navy’s ban on testing on dogs and cats (May 27)¹⁸ and the end of the Centers for Disease Control’s experiments on monkeys.¹⁹ On January 22, 2026, the EPA reaffirmed its commitment to eliminating animal tests.²⁰ This renewed focus on non-animal methods reflects the agency’s long-standing position and the significant scientific and technological progress that now allows for more reliable, human-relevant testing approaches.

There is still considerable work to be done to move U.S. science policy away from experiments on animals and toward modern, human-relevant methods. Such changes are necessary to improve the quality of biomedical research and for the U.S. to prove itself a world leader in innovative and superior research that will more effectively benefit human health. Research Modernization NOW can help stimulate those needed changes.