Personal care giant Colgate-Palmolive has teamed up with the Institute for In Vitro Sciences (IIVS) to host the Alternative Methods for Evaluation of Toxicity training course in Brazil, which looks at non-animal testing options.
The course focused on two in vitro methods with international regulatory acceptance status and was attended by over 30 industry and government participants who attended lectures and had hands-on experience during the program.
Dr. Daniel Bagley, Vice President, Global Product Safety at Colgate-Palmolive and a member of their Animal Welfare Committee, said, “Colgate-Palmolive helped support IIVS during its founding in 1997 and we have worked together on a wide variety of validation, education and outreach initiatives over the years.
“We appreciate IIVS’ collaborative approach and commitment to quality standards when implementing non-animal methods.”
The partnership comes at a time when Brazil is placing greater importance on finding alternative methods for animal testing in many industries such as cosmetics, and follows previous international collaborations between Colgate-Palmolive and IIVS. Indeed, Colgate-Palmolive is a founding member of the IIVS Industry Council for the Advancement of Regulatory Acceptance of Alternatives (ICARAA), while the two have previously come together to fund workshops for scientists and regulators from Brazil, Russia and China.
Erin Hill, Co-Founder and President of IIVS said, “IIVS has assisted many regulatory communities in the adoption and implementation of non-animal methods.
“An important part of this process is building capacity and infrastructure for the methods so they can be readily available for industry use and subsequent regulatory review.”
Implementing alternative methods to animal testing has been a key driver for Brazil, with CONCEA, a multi-institutional council responsible for controlling and monitoring the implementation of alternative methods in Brazil, having formally taken on 17 alternative test methods with international regulatory acceptance. The council has set a five-year target for implementation.
