The agency ordered the firm – a unit of LabCorp since 2015 - to pay $31,500 (€28,093) in connection with several breaches of Animal Welfare Act that occurred at the laboratory in 2014.
According to the USDA two monkeys died at the facility as a result of a faulty thermostat that allowed a room in the site's quarantine building to overheat. It also said a further 11 monkeys died when a separate enclosure overheated as a result of a wiring error in a second thermostat.
The agency also criticised Covance for failing to provide appropriate veterinary care for five animals and for its handling of other animals.
USDA Assistant Director of Public Affairs Lyndsay Cole confirmed Covance had been fined and told us the decision was announced by the agency on June 24.
Covance told us the deaths “were unfortunate, isolated incidents that were immediately addressed with strong corrective measures, including building in redundancies to prevent a reoccurrence.”
The firm added that it "had new override switches installed in all the animal rooms and upgraded our systems with built-in redundancies to protect our non-human primate population, including installing electronic room monitoring systems with alarms that are monitored 24 hours per day. There has been no reoccurrence of these issues.”
Fine confirmed
While a fine has been on the cards since the incident came to light in 2014, we first heard the USDA had imposed it on Covance on July 27 in an email from animal rights organization PETA.
Alka Chandna, an oversight specialist at the campaigning organisation, told us "This stipulation is much higher than previous fines against Covance, and we are very grateful for that. But they could and should be substantially higher if they are going to deter violations."