Agencies outline goals for reducing animal-based safety data

The National Toxicology Program (NTP) published a road map to establish new approaches to evaluate the safety of chemicals and drugs that seeks to provide more human relevant toxicology data while decreasing reliance on animal testing. Sixteen federal agencies, including FDA and NIH, developed the report as part of the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM).

The road map outlines three strategic goals: connecting those developing new test methods with industry stakeholders and regulatory agencies; promoting flexible approaches to validating new methods; and encouraging federal agencies and industry stakeholders to adopt new methods once validated. New methods for toxicity testing could include high throughput screening, tissue chips and computation models...