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ShareThe European Commission has published its “Roadmap towards phasing out animal testing for chemical safety assessments,” a landmark first step towards increasing the use of non-animal methods in the assessment of industrial chemicals, biocides, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and food additives in the European Union (EU).
Key elements of the roadmap include:
- Waiving or phasing out certain animal tests in the next few years, such as acute toxicity tests.
- Implementing more than 30 targeted actions across multiple sectors, including a new 3-step system to identify regulatory needs to help ensure resources are focused on developing non-animal methods regulators will accept.
- Funding innovative methods, such as AI-driven approaches, and providing open-access to the EU Reference Laboratory to test and validate non-animal methods
- Bringing stakeholders into decision-making, such as the inclusion of NGOs in the Roadmap Steering Team.
- Implementing new monitoring tools, indicators, and a public dashboard to increase transparency. The catalogue of transitional initiatives hosted by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, for example, could help map and coordinate global efforts to transition to non-animal approaches.
While the roadmap sets a course for advancing reliable and relevant non-animal testing approaches, the next steps will determine its impact. Further, a few notable gaps include the exclusion of certain areas of human and veterinary medicines testing, sources of funding, and how to ensure regulatory uptake. Also, while the roadmap “supports and strengthens the existing REACH framework,” the European Commission does not commit to changing legal requirements for regulatory testing.
The European Commission first committed to developing a roadmap in 2022. Scientists from PETA entities have been part of expert working groups and helped organise and present at workshops that informed the roadmap.