Animal research used to develop anti-cancer drugs

Since animal rights activists have been targetting medical research, though, security at his laboratory has increased.

Sir Walter specialises in bowel cancer research - he hopes his work will lead to the development of new drugs.

He says that animal testing is vital to medical research

"There is no one that hasn't benefited from drugs that depend on animal work - the millions of people that use the anti-ulcer drugs, painkillers of one sort or another or have been vaccinated."

Sector threatened

Scientists who work here say that the research that is carried out in labratories up and down the country could not continue without animal testing, and that a whole sector of the industry will suffer if the current action by anti-vivisectionists is successful.

Britain spends �7m a day on research into new medicines.

The industry employs 60,000 people directly, and 250,000 in service industries.

Scientists say that animal testing is only a limited part of the process of the development of new drugs.

But they say that if the current pressure on animal research continues, more could be carried out elsewhere.

While it is unlikely to mean pharmaceutical companies closing and moving away from Britain, over the longer term it could affect where medicines are produced as well as developed.

Scientists working in this field say they are already feeling the impact of the targetting by the animal rights activists, but Britain's research business is too important to risk losing.