A Strategic Roadmap for Establishing New Approaches to Evaluate the Safety of Chemicals and Medical Products in the United States

Progress toward replacing use of animals for safety testing of drugs and chemicals in the United States will be guided by the "Strategic Roadmap for Establishing New Approaches to Evaluate the Safety of Chemicals and Medical Products in the United States" developed by 16 federal government agencies. The roadmap, published on Jan. 30 by the National Toxicology Program (NTP), was developed during 2017 by the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM).

"This document improves on similar past efforts in some very important ways,” noted Warren Casey, Ph.D. Casey directs the NTP Interagency Center for the Evaluation of Alternative Toxicological Methods (NICEATM), which supports ICCVAM.

“For one thing, the roadmap represents a statement by federal agencies of how they envision new approaches to toxicological testing being adopted, as opposed to this perspective being provided by an external group,” he continued. “If progress in this area is going to happen, the agencies need to take the lead, and that is exactly what they are doing with the publication of the roadmap.”

Elements that will help the roadmap achieve its goals include a focus on human health, understanding customer needs, and transparent, publicly tracked implementation plans, according to Casey.

CONTINUE READING ON ntp.niehs.nih.gov