TESTING 11
The quest for a future without animal testing
n Richard Scott – Editor, Personal Care
In 2013, the European Union implemented its ban on animal testing in cosmetics. This landmark was the culmination of nearly 20 years of campaigning and the UK-based global cosmetics company, The Body Shop, was an instrumental force in its success. Such is the support in Europe for using non animal testing methods, it might come as a surprise, to consumers at least, that 80% of countries across the world still have no laws against using animal testing in cosmetics. Because of this, last year The Body Shop and Cruelty Free International launched a new global campaign, Forever Against Animal Testing. The aim of this campaign is to get eight million signatures on a petition which will then be taken to the UN, asking them to implement an end to animal testing in cosmetics globally. At the time of writing they have 7 million signatures.
The alternatives to animal testing There is undeniably an ethical argument against animal testing, but what many testing experts also add is that the accuracy and reliability of non-animal tests is far stronger. Methods such as in silico computer-based analysis and lab-produced skin offer the opportunity to remove elements of subjectivity from the process and give an improved representation of human reactivity to a specific chemical. In addition, the range of data generated in these non-animal tests can outstrip the traditional tests, giving a greater level of detail and opportunity to benchmark against other studies. Personal Care visited testing company, XCellR8, at their new facility in Warrington, UK, to find out more about non-animal testing. XCellR8 offer a range of exclusively animal-free safety and efficacy tests for both ingredients and finished products, and The Body Shop is one of their clients. Founder, Dr Carol Treasure, said: “The story of the company is a very personal one. I’d grown up always loving animals, which in turn led me into studying biology before entering the pharmaceutical industry. That’s where I witnessed animal testing taking
November 2018
place, and for me, even at that early age I thought there has to be a better way. So with my colleague Bushra Sim, we founded XCellR8 in 2008 and our mission has been to accelerate the transition to 100% animal- free testing with our scientifically-advanced approach as well as our ethical approach.” For The Body Shop, many of the natural, sustainable, and cruelty free trends that are evident within the industry today have been central to the company’s ethos for many years. From minimal packaging, to fragrance-free, to ethical sourcing, The Body Shop has engaged with issues that persist as causes among social media influencers and campaign groups in an attempt to change the way all cosmetic companies operate. But whereas in the past the campaign against animal testing has focused primarily on the ethical arguments, The Body Shop also agrees that ‘alternatives’ should now be viewed as superior in terms of scientific value:
Personal Care speaks to Jason Matthews – international regulatory & scientific director, The Body Shop Personal Care: Given the evidence available, it seems surprising that so many countries persist with animal testing while methods exist that provide better data. What would you say to encourage change in these places?
Jason Matthews: The key thing for us with these new methods is that we are getting good quality, quantitative data. Particularly when you’re doing these
types of screening tests where you’ve got a positive and negative control, in which the negative control is ‘zero’ and the positive control is ‘100’ and we can see where the test material is relative to those. Because we know it’s reproducible and robust, it means that we can compare product-to- product which is quite useful when you’re looking at how you formulate a product and the types of ingredients you use together. Invariably you’ll get some kind of synergistic
XcellR8’s premises in the UK.
effect when you’re developing products, so it’s a superb way of us being able to do a direct comparison both in terms of safety of the formula we’ve developed, but also in terms of comparing it with other products we’ve developed in the past. Ultimately, what it will enable us to do is manage the raw materials that we use. Most raw materials, in their purest form, have some sort of warning against them and so it is down to the skill of the formulator to understand what those limitations are and managing the risk so it becomes negligible. This is a great way to screen products before we actually test on humans; and actually our preference is to test on humans because you get robust data. It also enables us to have a two-way conversation, but we have an ethical duty to make sure before we go to that step we remove as much risk as possible. PC: Could animal tests ever offer good analogues for human skin and eyes? The results seem to involve so much subjectivity. JM: The difficulty is that you had a whole industry that was doing animal testing for 20-40 years. Coupled with that you had evidence of those chemicals being used during that time. So, you could do a comparison whereby you can say “We’ve
PERSONAL CARE EUROPE
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