OVER £250,000 in donations were awarded to scientists across the world by a Dorset-based beauty company in the fight against testing on animals.

The Lush Prize awards showcase the very best scientists and activists working to prevent animal testing across the world.

One of the top winners of the evening was Animal Aid UK who won a £50,000 prize for their contributions in calling for better science and an end to harmful animal tests.

The Poole-based business has funded over £ 2.7 million in research and science to end animal testing.

The Lush £250,000 prize fund is the biggest prize in the non-animal testing sector and is the only award solely focused on the complete replacement of animal tests and has been rewarding excellence in the field since 2012.

Altogether, £250,000 worth of prizes were given to scientists.

Lush’s website reads ‘Animal testing is poor science and its results are irrelevant for humans.’

Speaking on the evening, Co-founder Rowena Bird said: “These awards are about supporting five different elements; science, young researchers, lobbying and public awareness.

“My dream would be that somebody that we had funded early on went on to make the breakthrough change using our donation.

“There are so many good alternatives out there that do not require animals and are giving much stronger results.

“It is only a political stance that keeps us still having to have animal testing when, in fact, the animal testing is not giving us the results that we need to tell us the truth.

“Those animals are not humans.

“If they turned their cleverness into looking at the alternative and actually finding something that made a difference for a human, we'd get somewhere much faster.

“People work for us on the majority because of the stances that we take and because our products are vegetarian and vegan, because of what we stand for, because of the way we campaign, because of who we can support, and the grassroots charities and all of those things all rolls into one is why somebody works for Lush.”

The awards evening was held at the Lush Studio in Soho, London on May 21.