Long macaque breeding cycles and fully pre-booked colonies have forced some researchers to put critical studies on hold
Suppliers are now generally quoting about 180,000 yuan (US$27,000) per animal.
“It is not just a question of price,” said Guo, who works at the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Non-Human Primate Research. “In many cases, the monkeys simply cannot be bought. Suppliers say they have all been pre-booked.”
Guo said his laboratory required between 30 and 50 monkeys each year for scientific work, including pathological and molecular biological analyses.