Long-standing BASF and Givaudan Joint Effort Leads to Non-animal Testing Strategy Approved by OECD
In a world-first, toxicology testing without animal testing has just been approved by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Following a successful long-standing collaboration between BASF and Givaudan to develop and validate alternative methods, three alternative strategies are available to predict whether a substance will cause allergic reactions in the skin of humans.
“We have taken a big step forward. Now we can also use alternative methods to answer more complex toxicological questions without animal testing,” said Dr Robert Landsiedel, Vice President, Special Toxicology, BASF.
“We haven’t done it all alone, of course. Over the past 10 years, various companies and scientific institutions, such as the Institute for In Vitro Sciences (IIVS), have worked with us to validate the individual methods of the strategy,” emphasizes Dr Susanne Kolle, lab team leader at BASF. “We have trained laboratories around the world on how to use these methods to generate accurate results. The more laboratories join in, the more we can reduce animal testing in the future,” Kolle explains.