Last month the government announced it would tighten its laws to make it harder for protesters to gather outside homes and offices, and to make it easier to charge them with harassment. Scientists say they have also been assured that Britain will use the military to protect sites, if necessary.
The moves were praised by researchers and investors but fell short of what they said was required to deal with the problem.
The US has faced similar threats from animal welfare advocates -- the FBI has called such advocates who hold militant views a serious domestic terrorist threat -- but has tougher laws to deal with their tactics.
Animal welfare advocates usually choose traditional methods like demonstrations and letter campaigns to protest the experiments, which they consider fruitless and immoral. Their hope is to stop animal research and persuade the government to invest more in developing alternative methods for testing medicine.
"Grabbing a beagle by the scruff of the neck and forcing a tube down his throat -- that's not science," Avery said.
The advocates working outside the law and going after anyone even tangentially linked to the research centers have garnered the most success, particularly at Huntingdon Life Sciences. Everyone associated with the lab, including cabdrivers, delivery workers and bank executives, has become a target.
Since the intimidation campaign began in 1999, the company has lost its insurers, its bank and its largest shareholders. It has moved from the British stock exchange to the NASDAQ exchange in the US, where privacy rights are stronger.
At the company's lowest point, the British government stepped in to provide insurance and set up an account with the Bank of England to keep it afloat. Taxi drivers sometimes refuse to pick up customers there, and the drivers of fuel trucks will not deliver oil.
This year, 51 suppliers cut off business relations with Huntingdon, a number that is tallied by the animal welfare groups.
The attacks can also be personal. The managing director of the lab, Brian Cass, was beaten by men with baseball bats, and the cars and homes of Huntingdon employees have been vandalized in attacks linked to animal welfare advocates.
"Sometimes they target the supplier of the supplier," said Matthew Worrall, a spokesman for the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, adding that its member companies spend a combined US$54 million to US$127 million a year for protection.
Avery said his group was not responsible for any violence, and he defended its right to make life difficult for companies associated with the lab, calling them fair game.
"The companies involved are valid targets," he said. "Auschwitz would not have existed without people supplying gas, chemicals, food. Every single one of those, big or small, is a cog in that machine."
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