WASHINGTON, D.C. — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the creation of a new National Institutes of Health (NIH) office on June 15, 2026. The Office of Research, Innovation, Validation and Application will focus on ending reliance on animal testing in biomedical research, including the exploration of alternatives such as 3D human tissue models.

Kennedy stated, "My agency is deeply committed to ending animal experimentation." He also called for an end to the importation of monkeys for scientific studies. The NIH and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have implemented policies to reduce the number of research projects that rely on animal testing.

In the previous year, the NIH announced it would no longer award grants that solely relied on animal testing. Legislation has been reintroduced to direct the FDA to implement the FDA Modernization Act 2.0. This act, signed into law in 2022, removed the mandate for investigational new drugs to undergo animal testing before human clinical trials.

The House Appropriations fiscal 2027 Labor-HHS-Education bill states that the NIH should examine alternatives to animal testing. It requests that the NIH update its fiscal 2028 congressional justification regarding actions taken to strengthen enforcement of alternatives to animal testing. The bill asks the NIH to ensure peer reviewers have adequate resources to evaluate nonanimal methods. It includes language prohibiting funding for NIH-supported biomedical research on dogs and cats that could cause pain, even with anesthetics, unless no other alternative exists.

Brandon Morton, vice president of government affairs for the National Association for Biomedical Research, stated, "There should not be arbitrary deadlines or political pressure making scientific decisions." Colin Saldanha, a neuroscience researcher at American University, noted that he has not encountered a nonanimal model that replicates the zebra finch.

The House Appropriations fiscal 2027 Labor-HHS-Education bill also acknowledges the role of nonhuman primates in medical research. It encourages the NIH to continue funding projects that utilize nonhuman primates and animal models.