EPAA Reports on a Year of Progress Towards Animal Testing Reduction

Posted: January 3, 2007

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“Nevertheless, if we are to achieve our ambitious aims of rapidly developing new safety assessment models that reduce, refine and replace animal testing, we need the broadest group of partners possible. We strongly encourage other companies to join the EPAA,” they added.

The group was able to, in its first year, bring together seven industry sectors and numerous commission services to identify common grounds for collaboration, to put in place a five-year action program based on a preliminary and realistic assessment of needs, and to establish a structure for implementation of the program drawing on the expertise of all member companies and commission services.

Although the majority of actions have a medium-to-long-term perspective, a number of short-term objectives has been achieved this year. The first attempt to document all activities relating to the refinement, reduction, and replacement of animal tests, as well as processes leading to facilitating validation, have progressed rapidly.

In the future, this will be key to focusing research and avoiding possible duplication of efforts. Similarly, a project to map all legislation governing animal testing for safety assessment has identified a number of areas where collaboration between the industry and regulators can enhance application of replacement, reduction and refinement methods in safety testing.

Lalis and Laroche added: “Although much has been achieved in the EPAA’s first year, we still have a long journey ahead of us. However, we are absolutely certain that the only really effective way to tackle the challenges ahead is through a genuinely collaborative approach, and we look forward to this partnership developing further in 2007 and beyond.”