£50k EU cash for Daresbury firm working to eradicate animal testing

A five-figure boost has been awarded to North West laboratory XCellR8 as it seeks to completely eradicate animal testing for chemical ingredients used in cosmetics, personal care and household products.

Sci-Tech Daresbury-based XCellR8, which pursues non-animal testing through a variety of human cell-based methods, believes it is currently the only industrial testing lab developing new – or overhauling established – testing methods to cut out all animal elements.

The firm said the £50k European Union-funded grant, provided by EU research and innovation programme Horizon 2020, marks the next stage in developing and evaluating the test method it has created.

The test, which uses lab-cultivated human cells, will identify the level of harm a new product could cause to humans in a preliminary screen, which is an initial stage to gain basic information about likely acute toxicity.

With such chemical information in hand, manufacturers would be able to identify and eliminate potentially toxic substances at an early stage in their product development – before it reaches human trials.

With the EU Horizon 2020 funding, XCellR8 will develop its test and move closer to full regulatory approval.

Carol Treasure, XCellR8’s co-founder and MD, said: “Our acute toxicity testing method is aimed at meeting both the safety demands of EU REACH regulations (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals 2006) and the ethical demands of the EU Cosmetic Regulation.

“We are confident it can do this by using human skin cells that will give robust test results for human toxicity which are more accurate and reproducible than any animal test.”

She added: “It would also reduce the costs associated with animal testing and respond to the overwhelming demand from consumers worldwide for non-animal tested products.”

Speaking further, Carol said that while XCellR8’s ethos is to replace animal testing for good, as scientists the team wants to “create better science and replace animal-based tests with something more valid”.

Carol continued: “As cosmetics become increasingly sophisticated and include more active ingredients, the regulatory authorities are tightening up on the claims brands are making about their products – such as ‘anti-ageing’ – which means they need to substantiate their claims with data.

“And the current regulations, while necessary, threaten to stifle innovation because without having ‘in vitro’ tests – i.e. not tested on living things – that meet both REACH and the Cosmetics Regulation, new chemical ingredients can’t be tested or marketed.”

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