Covance

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Covance

Type	Public (NYSE: CVD)
Founded	1997
Headquarters	Princeton, New Jersey; facilities in 18 countries
Key people	N/A
Industry	Contract Research Organizations Pharmaceutical
Products	drug development services laboratory animals
Revenue	US$1.02 billion USD (2004)
Employees	7,000+ (2005)
Website	www.covance.com

Covance Inc. (NYSE: CVD), formerly Hazleton Laboratories America, Inc., with headquarters in Princeton, New Jersey, provides laboratory testing services. According to its website, it has annual revenues over $1 billion, operations in 18 countries, and over 7,000 employees worldwide. It became a publicly traded company after being spun off by Corning, Inc. in 1997.

Under the name Covance Research Products Inc. (CRP), based in Denver, Pennsylvania, the company deals in the import and sale of laboratory animals. It is the single largest importer of primates in the U.S. and the world's largest breeder of laboratory dogs. It owns two dog-breeding facilities, two primate centers, and a rabbit-breeding facility.

The company has been the subject of controversy following allegations of primate abuse in its laboratories in Germany and the United States, and in connection with a potential outbreak of the Ebola virus.

1 History of Covance
2 Ebola virus
3 Alleged primate abuse
- 3.1 Münster, Germany
- 3.2 Vienna, Virginia
4 See also
5 Notes
6 Further reading

[edit] History of Covance

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Corning Incorporated acquired numerous best-of-class drug development companies, some with roots dating back to the 1940s. In January 1997, Corning spun off these businesses as one publicly traded, independent company called Covance Inc..

The company's primary focus is serving the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. It provides testing services to the environmental, food, and nutritional supplement industries, and provides custom antibody products and services to the research community for neurological disorders. It also offers cell type-specific marker antibodies for neuroscience; suites of products for both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease; and an online antibody store including phospho-specific and secondary antibodies.

[edit] Ebola virus

In November 1989 at the Hazleton (Covance) Primate Quarantine Unit in Reston, Virginia, lab monkeys were found to have carried Ebola virus from the Philippines. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention intervened to eradicate the infected animals and burn the complex down, and avoided a potentially disastrous outbreak. Afterwards, in February 1990, a number of infected monkeys were shipped to Hazleton facilities in both Virginia and Texas. This strain was also found to be airborne. More Reston ebolavirus infected monkeys were discovered in 1992 in Siena, Italy and at the Texas Hazleton facility again in March 1996.

(EDIT) The "Reston Monkey House" as it came to be known locally was not "burned down" in 1989. It was "cooked" by enlisted U.S. Army personnel with several electric frying pans filled with formaldehyde crystals for three days afterwhich it was deemed safe. However repeated efforts to rent the facility proved fruitless and the building was eventually demolished in 1996.

[edit] Alleged primate abuse

[edit] Münster, Germany

Photograph taken by Friedrich Mülln

In 2004, German journalist Friedrich Mülln, working undercover at the German Covance facility in Münster, Europe's largest primate-testing center, obtained photographs, video, and other evidence of the apparent abuse of monkeys and other non-human primates. The laboratory in Münster specializes in reproduction toxicology and primate toxicology, which includes testing on pregnant primates. The company is responsible for around half the primate experiments in Germany.

The undercover footage shows staff making monkeys dance in time to blaring pop music, handling them roughly, and screaming at them. The monkeys are shown isolated in small wire cages with little or no natural light and no environmental enrichment, and living with high noise levels caused by staff shouting and playing the radio. video

Primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall described the living conditions of the monkeys as "horrendous," and told the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) that to see them "crazed with boredom, and sadness probably, is deeply, deeply disturbing." Primatologist Stephen Brend told BUAV that using monkeys in such a stressed state is "bad science" and that trying to extrapolate useful data in such circumstances is an "untenable proposition." [2]

The ensuing publicity in Germany gave rise to the "Close Covance" (Covance Schliessen) animal rights campaign there, as well as campaigns launched in Britain by the BUAV, and in America by PETA.

According to the European Biomedical Research Association, the local authorities in Munster inspected Covance after the video footage was shown on German television, and insisted that Covance install video cameras to monitor staff working with primates. Covance appealed through the courts, which decided that video monitoring would infringe the rights of the staff. The public prosecutor's office also viewed the film and questioned witnesses. They concluded that Covance "had not rendered themselves liable to prosecution." [3]

After parts of Mülln's footage were shown on German television and in major newspapers, Covance filed a lawsuit, leading a German court to forbid further distribution of the material. The publication ban led to major protests from animal-rights advocates and anti-censorship activists. A first ruling confirming Covance's claims was partially reverted by a higher court's ruling that the right of the public to be informed on the subject prevailed over the company's privacy rights. The video footage may now be displayed publicly, albeit not in the form of the existing television edition, but it may not be used by animal-rights groups.

[edit] Vienna, Virginia

A monkey in a restraint tube filmed by PETA in Covance, Vienna, Virginia, 2004–2005. [1]

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) found similar conditions in Covance's Vienna, Virginia lab during an undercover investigation in 2004-5.^[1]

A former study director at the Covance facility in Vienna, Virginia in the U.S., who worked there from 2002 to 2004, told city officials in Chandler, Arizona, that Covance was dissecting monkeys in its Vienna laboratory while the animals were still alive and able to feel pain.

The allegations were uncovered as part of an open-records request made by PETA in November 2006. The employee had earlier approached the city with her concerns when she learned that Covance planned to build a new laboratory in Chandler.

She alleged that three monkeys in the Vienna laboratory had pushed themselves up on their elbows and had gasped for breath after their eyes had been removed, and while their intestines were being removed during necropsies (autopsy). When she expressed concern at the next study directors' meeting, the employee says she was told that it was just a reflex. She told city officials that she believed such movements were not reflexes but suggested "botched euthanasia performed by inadequately trained personnel." She says that she was ridiculed and subjected to thinly veiled threats when she contacted her supervisors about the issue.^[2]