Article written by Marjorie Fishman
Originally published by Animal Welfare Institute (Mar 3, 2025)
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) is deeply concerned by the recent announcement that Safer Human Medicine (SHM)—the company behind a massive monkey-breeding facility planned in Georgia—has acquired a facility in Florida to hold non-human primates slated for biomedical research.
The 70-acre facility in LaBelle, Florida, will help SHM “accelerate its holding and quarantine operations for non-human primates,” the company said in a release, while supporting a planned $396 million complex in Bainbridge, Georgia, that, at peak capacity, would hold 30,000 long-tailed macaques. This is at least triple the number currently housed at any other US breeding facility.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) reported last month the findings of its investigation that identified a “secretly orchestrated deal between monkey importer Charles River Laboratories and SIMI United States, LLC, a company newly incorporated by the executives behind Safer Human Medicine.” SHM has denied PETA’s allegations that the deal was a secret.
Members of SHM’s executive leadership have a troubled track record on animal welfare issues. SHM’s CEO served as COO of Envigo during a time when conditions at that biomedical company’s Virginia dog-breeding operation were so atrocious that the facility was eventually shuttered following the execution of a federal search warrant and subsequent court orders. Envigo was convicted of conspiring to violate the Animal Welfare Act and paid the largest-ever fine in a case involving this federal law. Additionally, SHM’s president and COO previously held executive positions at Charles River Laboratories, which is still being investigated by the federal government for its conduct regarding shipments of long-tailed macaques from Cambodia.
Charles River Laboratories previously proposed building a mega monkey-holding facility in southeast Texas, but abandoned those plans last year after encountering opposition from local leaders and residents.
Since 2022, long-tailed macaques have been classified as “endangered” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. A scientific study published last year found that the population of this species has declined by 80% over the past 35 years, attributing it in part to accelerating demand from the biomedical industry. That same industry has formally petitioned the IUCN to strip long-tailed macaques of their endangered designation.
SHM’s planned Georgia facility is currently mired in multiple legal disputes filed by local residents. They have reason to worry. In November, 43 rhesus macaques escaped from the Alpha Genesis Incorporated primate research facility in Yemassee, South Carolina, putting the health of the monkeys and the town’s residents at risk.
“Safer Human Medicine is solidifying its investment stake in its monkey-breeding operation and ignoring residents’ objections, even though the fate of the Bainbridge facility is far from decided by the courts,” said Dr. Joanna Makowska, director and senior scientist for AWI’s Animals in Laboratories Program.
