Wonderful news! Merck & Co, Inc., one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, has announced that they will “stop conducting or financially supporting biomedical research on chimpanzees into the foreseeable future” as reported by The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).

This news comes after President Obama signed the Chimpanzee Health Improvement, Maintenance and Protection Act into law in December 2013, which will facilitate the transfer of nearly all research chimps to sanctuaries, and will be helping sanctuaries cover the costs of keeping and caring for the chimpanzees.

In the original article covering the Chimpanzee Health Improvement, Maintenance, and Protection act, a 2011 study by the Institute of Medicine was cited that came to the conclusion that there is a “decreasing scientific need for chimpanzee studies.”

It’s great to see such a large research-based company like Merck embrace this fact and see the future of medicine and science as animal-free.

According to the HSUS, with this announcement, “Merck joins a growing list of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, including GlaxoSmithKline, Novo Nordisk and Grifols, which have adopted policies against the use of chimpanzees in research.”

We applaud and celebrate Merck and the aforementioned companies for taking a step in the right direction, and we encourage them to continue moving toward more humane research solutions in regards to all of their other research policies.

Image Source: Afrika Force/Flickr