Small firms struggle to profit from 2009 animal-test ban

EU researchers are warning that revolutionary alternatives to animal testing may not make it to market in time for a 2009 ban on animal-tested cosmetics.

Cosmetic companies are rushing to find suitable non-animal tests for thousands of European products, including make-up, shampoo and toothpaste, before new legislation takes effect near the end of the decade.

But small research departments say they will struggle to get new testing methods on the market in the next three years, leaving wealthier multinationals to take all the glory.

"I worry that all the options for us with big [cosmetic] companies will have been taken by 2009," said Michel Salmon of Straticell Screening Technologies, a research firm set up last year by Namur University in Belgium. "It will be much more difficult to enter the market in 2009 than now."

Most in vitro (test tube or dish) alternatives to animal testing rely on human skin samples, for example from hospital biopsies and circumcisions, to test the toxicity and efficacy of cosmetics. These samples have to be replaced regularly and each sample differs from the others.

Straticell and several other EU companies, however, have developed ways of growing skin cells in the lab. These 'immortalised' cells can be reproduced an infinite number of times.

Salmon says a 2009 deadline may not give a small company such as his enough time to perfect its products and build up interest in them.

The main challenge for small companies,however, is getting the money needed to have products validated. This kind of peer review, according to Salmon, can cost 100,000 euro per test.

The European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) runs a European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM) dealing with peer reviews, including those needed for non-animal cosmetic tests.

Salmon said Straticell was likely to apply for funding from the EVCAM soon, but was concerned the money would not come through quickly enough to help with a 2009 deadline.

A JRC official however said that a new validation system launched last year was likely to speed things up. A list of smaller companies like Strati-Cell hoping for test validation has also been drawn up.

"This is an open list, there is no deadline to apply for inclusion," explained the official.

The JRC says the validation programme gets roughly five applications a year for alternative cosmetics toxicity tests, but that many of them concern methods still being developed that cannot yet be validated.

EU researchers are warning that revolutionary alternatives to animal testing may not make it to market in time for a 2009 ban on animal-tested cosmetics.