Home secretary Jack Straw announced a minimum £1 million special grant to Cambridgeshire Police to deal with animal rights professors targeting drug research laboratory Huntingdon Life Sciences.
The troubled company is in talks with the Royal Bank of Scotland to extend a £22 million loan facility due to expire today. Campaigners have begun demonstrating outside branches of the bank.
The announcement comes after prime minister Tony Blair (pictured) stepped in, warning that pharmaceutical companies would move their research abroad if the laboratory closes.