21/09/2026

It is a ruling that has been awaited for years and could change the rules of the game: last Wednesday, 16 September 2026, the EFTA Court ruled that the collection of blood from pregnant mares for the production of the PMSG hormone (equine chorionic gonadotropin) constitutes a scientific procedure and falls within the scope of Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes. The consequence of this ruling is that blood collection cannot be exempted from the animal welfare regulations in force within the European Economic Area.
The ruling comes at the end of proceedings initiated by Icelandic company Ísteka, which had challenged in court the decisions of the national veterinary authority, arguing that blood collection from pregnant mares should be classified as a standard farming practice and therefore exempt from the rules on animal experimentation. The Court rejected this position, ruling that "blood collection from pregnant mares does not constitute a standard or typical husbandry practice, unlike equine blood donations for veterinary purposes, since the blood collected does not place the welfare of the horses as an absolute priority."
The case is now referred back to the District Court of Southern Iceland, which will have to issue a final ruling on the basis of this advisory opinion.

What is PMSG — and why IHP has been fighting it for years

PMSG is a hormone extracted from the blood of mares in their fourth month of pregnancy, from which a drug is produced that is used in intensive livestock farming (predominantly pig farming) to synchronise the reproductive cycles of females and increase their productivity. It is produced in Iceland — the only European country still active in this sector — and in several South American countries, through what are now universally known as "blood farms": facilities in which mares are bled of up to five litres of blood per week over extended periods, under conditions documented by multiple undercover investigations as brutal and incompatible with any animal welfare standard. The foals born from these pregnancies are treated as by-products and sent to slaughter.

IHP has been monitoring and exposing this supply chain since 2017. In 2021, following an investigation by the Animal Welfare Foundation and the Tierschutzbund Zürich that revealed conditions on Icelandic blood farms, IHP wrote to the Italian Ministries of Health and Agriculture to demand an immediate halt to PMSG imports into Italy. In March 2022, together with sixteen other international organisations, it filed a formal complaint with the EFTA Surveillance Authority (ESA) denouncing violations of European Economic Area regulations. The issue also reached the European Parliament, which in November 2021 called on the Commission to ban both the domestic production and importation of PMSG.

The ruling is the outcome of that campaign. It does not close the matter yet, since the final word rests with the Icelandic court, but it clarifies the legal framework: Directive 2010/63/EU applies, and with it the 3Rs principles (Replace, Reduce, Refine), which require the pursuit of alternatives to methods that cause suffering. Synthetic alternatives to PMSG already exist: dozens of formulations are already on the market. There is no technical justification for continuing to produce it by subjecting pregnant mares to this treatment.

The blood hormone returns to the spotlight (december 2025)