Strategies That Influence Cost Containment in Animal Research Facilities

Care and use of animals in research are expensive, prompting efforts to contain or reduce costs. Components of those costs are personnel, regulatory compliance, veterinary medical care, and laboratory animal management, equipment, and procedures. Many efforts have been made to control and reduce personnel costs, the largest contributing factor to cost, through better facility and equipment design, more efficient use of personnel, and automation of many routine operations. However, there has been no comprehensive, recent analysis of the various cost components or examination of the strategies that have been proven or are purported to decrease the cost of animal facility operation. Strategies that Influence Cost Containment in Animal Research Facilities examines the current interpretation of governmental policy (Office of Management and Budget Circular A-21) concerning institutional reimbursement for overhead costs of an animal research facility and describes methods for economically operating an animal research facility. This report develops recommendations by which federal auditors and research institutions can establish what cost components of research animal facilities should be charged to institutions' indirect cost pool and what animal research facility cost components should be included in the per diem charges to investigators, and assesses the financial and scientific ramifications that these criteria would have among federally funded institutions. Further, the report determines the cost components of laboratory animal care and use in biomedical research and assesses and recommends methods of cost containment for institutions maintaining animals for biomedical research.