Facts and Figures
The number of animals used in our studies has decreased significantly in the past years. More than 90 percent of the animal studies we conduct are legally required. But even when they are not and rather justified by scientific reasons we make sure that all our studies are ethically and scientifically justified.
How Many Animals Are Used in Research?
In 2023, our scientists and our cooperation partners worldwide used 46.626 animals as part of their research. This continues to be a reduction over previous years in the sequence of several years.
What Kinds of Animals Are Used?
79.6 percent of all laboratory animals at Bayer are mice and rats. Other rodent species and rabbits make up additional 1.2 percent. Fish make up 10.2 percent and birds 6.0 percent. Only 0.4 percent of all our laboratory animals are non-human primates (NHPs) and dogs. Livestock animals make up 0.6 percent and based on specific regulatory studies 2.0 percent are frogs.
Mice and rats are the most frequently used animals because their bodies are similar to humans in many ways. They usually provide reliable evidence of how a new active ingredient will react inside the human body.
Other species are used only if studies in mice and rats are unlikely to yield meaningful results, or in scientific or regulatory circumstances. For example, in toxicity studies for the development of new drugs, authorities usually require studies in a non-rodent species (dogs, pigs, primates) as well as in rodents. In this way the authorities want to ensure that as many of the drug’s effects as possible are detected before the product is used in humans for the first time.