PIPELINE BIOTECH A/S: COMPETING REGULATORY REGIMES FOR LABORATORY ANIMAL EXPERIMENTS

Publisher Summary The chapter discusses how Pipeline Biotech has benefited from the differences between England and Denmark in regulatory regimes, and the company's attitudes to animal testing to grow its business in the United Kingdom. Pipeline's major edge was the speed with which it could conduct a new experiment for a customer because of the differences in the two countries' regulatory regimes for animal testing. Pipeline was often able to begin a new experiment in 2 to 3 weeks, compared with the 6 months often required to get a license in the United Kingdom. Pipeline grew quickly, more than doubling in size in each of its first 3 years. By 2001, it had grown to over 20 employees, spurred by its largest ever contract that came through its partnership with Aarhus University, where Kristensen had obtained his PhD degree in cancer research. The pipeline has a high ethical standard but handles it in a relaxed manner. At the outset, Pipeline seemed to be surprisingly unconcerned with ethical issues for a firm that would be focusing solely on animal experiments, an area attracting growing protests in many parts of Europe and the United States.