Episode summary
In this short segment, the My First Million hosts describe the economics and supply chain behind lab testing on animals used in pharmaceutical development, focusing on non-human primates. They claim the US imports roughly 20,000 monkeys a year and say per-animal costs rose dramatically during the Covid-19 period as demand for medicine and vaccine testing increased. The hosts allege prices that were previously in the low thousands climbed to $20,000 and, at peak, as high as $50,000 per monkey.
They attribute the spike to a supply shock, asserting that China previously supplied about 60% of the world’s non-human primates and then stopped exports (“kept them all for ourselves”), forcing buyers to seek alternative suppliers. They say Cambodia and Vietnam stepped in to provide animals following China’s export halt.
The conversation then turns to contract research and testing providers. The hosts cite Charles River Laboratories as a major “testing as a service” business supplying animal models and conducting testing for biotechnology companies. They claim the firm works with around 80% of biotech companies and that a large share of drugs that reach market are tested through it, describing the company’s position as an effective monopoly and putting its annual revenue at roughly $4bn.
The segment is presented as commentary and contains multiple quantitative claims without sourcing in the audio provided.
