Harlan Sprague Dawley Inc. is one of the world's leading suppliers of animals and other services to laboratories for the purpose of animal testing.[1] Harlan describes itself as a global provider of pre-clinical research tools and services for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agrochemicals, industrial chemical, and food industries.[2]
The company is based in Indianapolis in the United States, and has branches in the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Israel, Mexico, and Scandinavia. It was founded in 1931.
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Harlan UK Ltd. is the British arm of Harlan Sprague Dawley Inc. It has an annual turnover of £6.6 million, according to the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV).[3] The company supplies marmosets, beagles, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, mice, gerbils, and hamsters, as well as hybrid, mutant, and transgenic animals. Its brochure says it supplies more stocks and strains of lab animals than any other commercial supplier in the world.[3] BUAV writes that the company breeds around 450 baby marmoset monkeys a year, selling them to laboratories around Europe for £1,000 each.[3]
Harlan is a target of animal rights activists, and the group Animal Liberation Front has raided Harlan Interfauna removing animals and stealing documents. For one raid in 1990, during which 82 beagles and 26 rabbits were stolen, John Curtin and Danny Attwood were convicted and sentenced to nine months and 18 months in prison respectively.[5][6]
In 2006, over 1,000 animals, including 25 macaque monkeys were removed from Harlan in Correzzana, Italy, with computers and equipment smashed, by the Animal Liberation Front in Italy.[7]