Privacy choices

Essential cookies keep the site and store working. Statistics help us improve page performance. Marketing cookies measure advertising. The selections below become your saved preference and override regional defaults.

Learn more in our Privacy Policy.

ID Made Easy
Research Book an Intro Call Shop
Book an Intro Call Get in Touch
Research · Applications

Animal ID and Monitoring for Pharmacology

PK/PD, safety pharmacology, and behavioral studies run on individual-animal traceability. UID's ID and temperature microchips, plus home cage monitoring, keep every dose and sample tied to the right animal.

  • PK/PD · safety pharm
  • 3Rs · IACUC aligned
  • Individual animal ID · UID encoded format
Book an Intro Call Let's Talk
Sealed drug vials, glass ampoules, a test tube rack and an Erlenmeyer flask on a lab bench, with a gloved researcher working out of focus behind them.
Sealed drug vials, glass ampoules, a test tube rack and an Erlenmeyer flask on a lab bench, with a gloved researcher working out of focus behind them.
What UID brings to preclinical pharmacology

Traceability Across a Repeat-Dosing Study

Each animal in a pharmacology study produces data from enrollment through readout. The hard part is keeping all of it attached to the right animal.

  • A unique ID per animal — a glass-encapsulated implantable microchip returns an 8-digit, non-repeating ID, read contactlessly through tissue.
  • Temperature on the same scan — ±0.1 °C at 38 °C, for thermoregulatory and metabolic readouts and for picking up drug-induced hypothermia or febrile response. The UCT-2112 is the only GLP-validated temperature transponder for laboratory research.
  • Continuous rack-scale temperature tracking — AnyCage+ monitors a full rack 24/7 without pulling animals out of their cages or disturbing them.
  • Activity and location — Mouse Matrix adds locomotor activity and zone-level position alongside temperature, capturing behavioral and CNS-drug data without manual scoring sessions.
  • An audit trail that holds up — every sample, dose, and observation logged against the right animal and timestamped, which is what GLP review and regulatory submissions expect.
How UID hardware fits a typical pharmacology study

From Enrollment to Dose-Response Readout

  1. Enroll and Identify

    Inject a UID implantable transponder at study start. The chip reads through tissue with a UID handheld and ties the animal to its dose group, cohort, and any group-housing assignment for the duration of the study.

  2. Dose and Sample

    On every dose and every sample collection, scan the animal contactlessly with a URH-1HP handheld. The ID writes directly into the dosing log or LIMS so the sample tube label and the animal of origin can't drift apart across a long PK series.

  3. Monitor Physiology

    Temperature transponders return body temperature on every scan, ±0.1 °C at 38 °C. For safety pharmacology, AnyCage+ adds 24/7 temperature across a rack; for CNS-drug and behavioral work, Mouse Matrix adds locomotor activity and zone occupancy alongside temperature — useful for sedation/stimulant readouts and for catching drug-induced thermoregulatory effects.

  4. Tie It Together

    All readings, doses, and samples carry the same animal ID. Handheld scans export into LIMS, the study record, or an analysis pipeline against that ID. VivoTraq adds cloud dashboards, query-based alerts, and temperature analytics over AnyCage and UID reader data. Nothing gets reconciled by hand or re-typed before regulatory submission.

Where pharmacology groups use it

Study Types and Disease Models

Temperature, activity, and individual animal ID show up across pharmacology in different ways. These are the areas UID hardware is most often used in.

  • Metabolic disease and thermoregulation

    Temperature and activity tracking for diabetes, obesity, and thermoregulation research, where body temperature is the readout rather than a welfare check.

  • Pain and inflammation

    Body temperature serves as a biomarker for inflammatory response and for analgesic effect, captured without the restraint a probe measurement requires.

  • Neurodegenerative disease

    Continuous activity data helps identify the behavioral changes studied in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease models.

  • Safety pharmacology

    Real-time temperature tracking indicates drug-induced thermoregulatory change, supporting metabolic assessment across long-term safety work.

  • CNS and neuroactive compounds

    Behavioral and activity monitoring supports evaluation of neuroactive compounds, sedatives, and stimulants without manual scoring sessions.

  • Circadian and behavioral readouts

    Home cage monitoring tracks activity, circadian rhythms, and behavioral patterns non-invasively, 24/7, in the animal's own cage.

Products

The UID Products Used in Preclinical Pharmacology

Animal ID, temperature, and home cage activity monitoring — the pieces most pharmacology studies pull from.

Independent validation

Cited in Published Research

Published work using UID temperature transponders. Most of it comes from the labs that ran the studies rather than from us.

Common Questions

  • Will the implantable transponder affect PK/PD readouts or drug distribution?

    Nothing in the transponder is designed to interact with a dosed compound: it is glass-encapsulated for tissue biocompatibility, battery-free, and implanted subcutaneously with a standard UID injector. We haven't characterized transponder effects for specific compound classes, so raise it during study design if that's a concern, and we'll work through implant location and chip size with you.

  • How does UID temperature monitoring compare to telemetry?

    Telemetry is the right call for continuous arterial pressure, ECG, or respiratory readouts. For body temperature alone, an implantable transponder returns ±0.1 °C at 38 °C on a contactless scan, with no battery and no surgical implant. Implant route affects what the reading represents, so tell us your endpoint and we'll walk through placement.

  • Can we tie sample tubes back to specific animals automatically?

    Yes. Scan the animal with a URH-1HP handheld reader at the moment of dosing or sample collection, and the reader writes ID and temperature into any LIMS field over USB or Bluetooth. The sample tube label can then be matched to the animal ID downstream, with no parallel paper log to reconcile.

  • Is UID hardware compatible with group housing?

    Yes. AnyCage+ and Mouse Matrix both resolve to the individual animal in group housing: temperature, plus zone-level activity on Mouse Matrix, attributed back to each chip-carrying animal. Animals can stay group-housed for the bulk of a study and their physiological data still tracks per animal.

  • How does this support 3Rs and IACUC review?

    Contactless ID and temperature scans reduce animal handling, which IACUC review treats as a refinement under the 3Rs. Continuous home cage monitoring reduces the need for cage-side observation sessions and supports evidence-based humane endpoints. Implantable temperature transponders remove the rectal probe step — a refinement many welfare committees specifically ask for.

Scoping a Pharmacology Protocol?

What you need depends on cohort size, dosing frequency, and which physiological endpoints matter. If you're designing a new protocol or moving off another vendor's equipment, we can help you scope it before you order.

Book an Intro Call Let's Talk