We look to the ‘One Substance, One Assessment’ (OSOA) regulations to improve collaboration and help to reduce testing on animals, as well as strengthen human health and environmental protection.  

Since the European Union created the OSOA initiative as part of the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, we, along with other animal protection organisations, have championed its clear potential and pushed for measures which will directly contribute to the transition away from testing chemicals on animals.   

The OSOA initiative aims to enhance cooperation and efficiency across multiple EU agencies. This new legislation will also deliver a ‘one stop shop’ in the form of a new “common data platform for chemicals” (CDPC), which will increase access to key chemical safety information.  

The platform will act as a single place to store test data generated under about 70 different laws in force in the EU, including on chemicals, food safety, medicines and the environment. This will greatly improve transparency, help avoid duplicative testing, and boost the sharing and re-use of existing data. Overall, CDPC will strengthen human health and environmental protection, including through supporting the development and implementation of non-animal test methods.   

These provisional agreements reached in the European Parliament now need to be formally adopted by both the European Parliament and Council. We will continue to support this new legislation and its effective implementation, recognising the alignment with the EU’s planned roadmap for the phase-out of animal testing for chemicals assessments and the call for action from our European Citizens’ Initiative, ‘Save Cruelty-Free Cosmetics – Commit to a Europe without Animal Testing’, which received over 1.2 million signatures.   

Our Director of Science and Regulatory Affairs, Dr Emma Grange, said: “This is another positive step in the right direction for European chemicals laws and plans to phase-out animal testing for chemicals assessment. Steps like these will help to ensure a wider awareness of, and potentially increase access to, existing test data – this can minimise the need for new tests on animals to be performed as well as supporting greater use of non-animal methods. This legislation looks set to also bring increased connectivity between different agencies across Europe, and greater coherence in the longer-term drive to phase out all animal tests.”