The cosmetics industry has been a pioneer in development and validation of alternative methods to animal use. In line with Directive 2010/63/EC on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes, sectoral pieces of EU chemicals legislation (e.g. cosmetics, industrial chemicals) that rely on (eco)toxicological information either require or strongly encourage the use of alternatives to animal testing.

In addition to using in vitro methods that are formally validated and peer reviewed, conclusions on chemical safety can sometimes be obtained by integrating data from multiple sources of information within Integrated Approaches to Testing and Assessment (IATA).

Data sources within IATA include computational methods, such as Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship (QSAR) models and Physiologically Based Kinetic and Dynamic (PBK/D) models, In Vitro Tests, and existing Data On Chemical Analogues (Read-Across).

Since 2004, Oroxcell has been involved for the development and validation of In vitro / In chemico assays that reached scientific and quality criteria to support critical toxicological end points according to existing OECD guidelines, and also to develop and validate novel assays permitting the assessment of novel endpoints or products that cannot accurately be tested using existing guidelines.