The head of a British business targeted relentlessly by animal rights extremists has called on the financial services industry to stop treating his company as “radioactive”.
Brian Cass, managing director of Huntingdon Life Sciences, urged banks, insurers, auditors and the financial markets to shrug off fears of intimidation and have the courage to work with his company and others involved in the development of medicines.
His comments come as the UK’s largest case against individuals alleged to have conspired to blackmail suppliers to HLS, a large clinical research group that tests medicines on animals, moves towards trial amid a decline in intimidation by activists.
“There is still a perception in the financial community that we are radioactive,” said Mr Cass. “We don’t have any special difficulties and it’s mostly business as usual for us, but the message of success still hasn’t [reached] the hierarchy.”
Mr Cass said he regretted the reluctance of many pharmaceutical companies to stand up and say that they used HLS as an essential part of the process of developing life-saving medicines.
But he added that it should be possible to use UK companies legislation in order to conceal the identity of auditors working with animal testing businesses for their own protection, in the same way in which the home addresses of company directors can be kept confidential.
HLS had to create its own in-house delivery, security, catering and laundry services as outside suppliers cancelled contracts following years of intimidation. It had to negotiate banking and insurance facilities through the government and secure an exemption from standard auditing requirements.
Mr Cass said the company had largely adapted to the extra costs such measures imposed, with the greatest being the cost of fundraising and borrowing.
The company faced difficulties in finding a stockbroker and seeking a quotation, but at the end of last year managed to obtain a New York Stock Exchange Arca listing under the name Life Sciences Research. Since then, said Mr Cass, the company’s share performance had been strong.
Mr Cass also managed last month to negotiate a significant reduction in the size and interest rate charged on $60m (£29.9m) in outstanding bank loans with a non-UK financial institution that he refused to name.
Regulatory filings show the US company had 47 clients placing orders for more than $1m last year, and reported gross profits up 5 per cent to $50m on revenues of $192m.
He said the number of animals used in testing by the pharmaceutical industry was declining, and that fewer than 2 per cent of its tests were on dogs or primates, with the vast majority on rats and mice.
