An analysis of recent animal use in the Republic of Korea, in an international context: Growth in animal procedures but no real progress on refinement

Korea has published an annual national census of laboratory animal use since 2008, but whether growth in the level of oversight reflects progress on the Three Rs ( replacement , reduction , refinement ), and how Korea compares internationally in these respects, is unclear. In order to investigate this further, six years of Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency (APQA) census data (2019–2024 inclusive), supplemented by press releases where primary reports were incomplete, were analysed descriptively (with data gaps clearly marked). The analysis showed that total animal use rose by 23.8%. Animal use in the most severe pain/distress category (Grade E) increased every year, from 40.1% to 51.5% of total animal use (2019 versus 2024). This opposes declining trends in the EU, Great Britain and Canada, in terms of implementing refinement strategies that shift the animal use into a less severe category. Quality control (QC) testing was already dominant in 2019 (65.8% of regulatory testing) and reached 70.3% in 2024; for 2023–2024, this type of testing was 98.0–98.3% rodent-based, despite the availability of validated in vitro alternatives. An apparent decline in efficacy testing reflects normalisation after the COVID-19 surge, rather than a sustained reduction. Korea’s proportion of animal use in the highest-severity category (51.5%; 2,364,100 animals in 2024) is markedly greater than Great Britain’s (3.4%; 48,224 in 2024), Canada’s (2.6%; 98,441 in 2024) or the EU’s (8.5%; 784,048 in 2022), despite a broadly comparable reporting scope (which far exceeds the USA’s or Japan’s incomplete reporting). The analysis revealed that growth in the comprehensive recording of animal use in Korea has not been matched by progress on refinement , reduction or replacement . Current priorities are identified as: enacting pending legislation on the use of alternative methods; and incentivising the adoption of species-specific approaches, particularly for rodent-based QC assays.