EuroMix contributed to EPAA Partners Forum: Finding synergies for 3Rs Toxicokinetics and read‐across
On November 21st 2017, partners in the European Partnership for Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing (EPPA) met in Brussels to build synergies on the development and acceptance of Toxicokinetics (TK) and read‐across. The EPAA Partners Forum brought together 33 expert participants from industry and European Commission (EC), along with selected representatives from regulatory agencies and invited researchers from two EU‐funded H2020 research projects (EuroMix and EUToxRisk). Dr. Vikas Kumar from University of Rovira I Virgili (Spain) represented the EuroMix project in this meeting. Dr. Kumar presented “Toxicokinetics and read across in EuroMix” and discussed how research in EuroMix is helpful for the wider stakeholders and why collaboration is necessary for the society. This EPAA Partners Forum was part of EPAA activities to address one of 6 challenges as a priority i.e. to improve intra and inter sectorial collaboration and coordination. EPAA is a relevant platform to build synergies across sectors, given its multi‐sectoral structure encompassing different business sectors. Besides exchanging information between sectors about their respective research agendas and activities in the sectorial flagship initiatives, the event was meant as an opportunity for the partners to identify possibilities for synergies, receive feedback and present scientific input relevant for EPAA. Discussions revolved around four balanced sessions aiming at covering the whole spectrum of stakeholders working on Toxicokinetics (TK) and read‐across i.e. regulators, the regulated, method developers and downstream users.
At the end of the day, a scientific consensus was achieved on the following four items:
- TK data play an important role in risk assessment across all industry sectors and are subject to significant research effort by all relevant stakeholders
- TK data strengthen the read across weight of evidence; TK data should ideally be anchored towards human relevance, preferably generated using in silico and in vitro tools
- Identification and characterization of Metabolism is a key component of TK assessment in read-across
- The forum expressed confidence that significantly more progress in TK can be made if collaboration between sectors is enhanced and synergies are captured.
The participants’ discussion was captured by a scientific writer and a scientific publication is currently under preparation.
