On 12 August 2026 the government announced a £22 million push to expand animal-free testing methods in UK science. Science Minister Chris McDonald set out a new Pre-clinical Translational Models Hub in Cambridge, backed by £20 million, to build and share human tissue models grown from NHS patient donations, including small versions of gut, tumour or brain tissue. Co-led by the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and the Wellcome Sanger Institute, it would draw on about 60 principal investigators on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.

Alongside it, Innovate UK said it was investing up to £2 million in nine projects, including lab-grown heart tissue, human ear models and AI tools predicting how drugs move through the body. The department said the latest figures showed 2.54 million animal testing procedures in Great Britain in 2025, down 3.8% on 2024, with a further update due later that year. It said a delivery update on the Replacing Animals in Science Strategy would be published later in 2026.

The announcement cited the sector's roughly 360,000 jobs and £147 billion turnover in 2023/24. McDonald said the funding aimed to give researchers better tools while preventing animal testing wherever possible.