Lab monkey prices reach record high as China’s biotech industry booms

Soaring demand for preclinical testing in China’s biotech industry has created a windfall for the laboratories that breed monkeys used in drug trials, reports the South China Morning Post.

Beijing-based Joinn Laboratories, a contract research organisation (CRO) dual listed in Shanghai and Hong Kong, said on Wednesday that its first-half net profit attributable to shareholders would surge 1377.4% from a year earlier, without giving the profit estimate figure. The biotech CRO cited higher pricing for its laboratory animals as the core growth driver, with analysts singling out lab monkeys.

“Costs of lab primates–most notably crab-eating macaques–started trending upwards from the middle of last year,” Yu Ruyi, an analyst at Kaiyuan Securities pointed out in a March research report. Survey data compiled by the analyst showed that each crab-eating macaque fetched RMB 90,000 ($13,301) in the middle of last year.