The Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) International Council said the facility in Horst met with all the appropriate standards and commented Envigo’s “efforts to achieve a quality animal care and use program.”
The 9,600m2 facility – which became part of Envigo in May 2014 when former owner Harlan merged with Huntingdon Life Sciences - consists of five barrier units and a hub for distributing research models and Teklad laboratory animal diets to customers across Europe and Asia.
The site also houses back-up colonies for all major Envigo stocks and strains in order to safeguard the consistent supply.
Envigo COO Adrian Hardy said: “The AAALAC accreditation of our Horst site is great news and demonstrates the high standards we set for animal welfare.
“Since our acquisition of the research models business nearly two years ago we’ve put in place an investment plan to make renovations and improvements across our global sites. A key element of this plan is to earn AAALAC accreditation for all our European sites, and a program to achieve this is ongoing.”
Envigo recently renovated two barrier units at the facility that house several stocks and strains of mice, rats and guinea pigs.
This renovation included improvements in building maintenance and biosafety as well as ensuring compliance with the new EU/2010/63 guidelines on cages.