Of Mice and Men and Medicine: Pharma-Bio Industry's Need for New Drugs Spurs Capital Investment to Produce Research MIce

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Reported by Annette Kreuger, Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--It is a topic that makes many squeamish and others enraged -- little white mice being bred in order to be used in the drug-development research process. Yet, these animals play an essential role in the evolution of bringing a drug to market, long before it reaches the drugstores. The mice used in medical research are bred for that purpose with dozens of factors included in their own development, all of which are geared to whatever the target disease and potential treatment require. In support of this need, a number of companies are investing millions of dollars to expand for new mouse houses, as the facilities are commonly known within the industry.

A recent analysis of the data in Industrial Info's Pharmaceutical Tracker - Online Database has revealed a total investment value (TIV) of $78 million in six capital projects that deal with the construction of a new mouse facility or the expansion of an existing one. Of the six, two were recently completed and the others are in various stages of development.

Taconic Farms (Hudson, New York) recently wrapped up a $13 million mouse facility addition in Rensselaer, New York. Located on the University of Albany East campus, the project added a 23,000-square-foot building equipped with the company's proprietary Isolated Barrier Unit System for the production of research mice and rats. The rodents will be utilized by both public and private entities. The company is readying the second phase of the above project, which will entail an $8 million investment to produce murine pathogen-free and restricted flora mice and rats.

In late 2006, Saint Louis' Washington University completed construction on an $18 million lab that works on developing the most efficient mouse models, so to speak, in order to shorten the exhaustively long drug research and testing times.

The largest private supplier of research mice is the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine. That company is in the midst of a huge expansion at the West Sacramento, California, lab, which will add 160,000 square feet of space to produce genetically designed mice for research.

Mice have been used in cancer research dating back to 1894. They carry an amazing genetic similarity to humans. Their rapid rate of reproduction increases their suitability for genetic manipulation. Initially used for same-species tumor transplantations and drug treatment studies, by 1921 scientists were able to enhance inbred strains that were predisposed to getting tumors and offer them to cancer researchers. When the Jackson Laboratory was founded in 1929, dozens of new strains of mice were produced.

A breakthrough occurred in 1962, with the discovery of a mutant mouse that had low immunity, which eventually lead to human tumor transplantations, a valuable milestone in cancer research. The late 1980s saw a huge advance with the evolution of transgenic mice, whose genes are altered to produce a desired health characteristic. As a result, the genes that cause cancer (oncogenes) could now be studied in much greater detail without risk to human patients.

Although the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) agency and its ilk would have everyone believe that the labs are filled with diabolical animal killers bent on enjoying the death of Mickey Mouse's cousins, it is simply not true. Almost to a fault, personnel working with the little critters are respectful and enamored of these creatures that help save so many lives. All employed within both the production of and research with mice are placed in danger because of the constant threats of activists. It is a rare news year when there is not at least one headline announcing yet another lab being blown up or its employees targeted for death. It is ironic. Threatened violence against the very people diligently working with the mice for the sole purpose is to improve and extend life. Yet, I suspect the truth would follow the lines of the old saying, "...there are no atheists in a foxhole..." It is doubtful one would find any animal activists in a terminal cancer ward.

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