Animal welfare at Atuka

Atuka’s work plays a critical role in the development of new therapies for Parkinson’s disease (PD) and related neurological conditions. Such debilitating conditions remain poorly understood with a huge range of unmet clinical needs. Meanwhile, the number of people living with neurodegenerative conditions is only rising as our population ages.

Advances in non-animal research methods have been significant, and we use those methods wherever they can answer the scientific question. Some of our research still requires animals. We treat their use and welfare as a core ethical responsibility, both as scientists and as the people responsible for their care. 

How we think about it

Animal welfare is a precondition for good science. An animal under avoidable stress is a poor scientific subject; data drawn from compromised welfare is data we cannot trust. 

We continuously evaluate whether the scientific question in front of us can be answered without animals. Non-animal methods — advanced in vitro systems, organ-on-chip platforms, computational and AI-based models — are reviewed at the study level and across the organization and used wherever they are validated and adequate. Non-human primates are recognized as sentient animals, and their use is held to additional scrutiny and a higher threshold of justification.

When a study does proceed, every decision affecting an animal’s welfare — from study design to humane endpoints to intervention during the work — is made by a team that includes veterinary staff, the scientist responsible, and any research collaborator. Veterinarians and ethics committees can stop a study or require humane intervention at any point.

How it gets done

The people working with our animals are trained, supported, and trusted to raise concerns. 

Every animal study at Atuka is reviewed and approved by an independent ethics committee before any work begins, and our work meets the most stringent applicable international standards, including those of the Canadian Council on Animal Care, AAALAC International, and EU Directive 2010/63/EU. We operate under the EQIPD Quality Management System, which governs the reproducibility and integrity of preclinical research data.