UK lab XCellR8 secures grant from EU research and innovation programme Horizon 2020

UK laboratory XCellR8 has secured a £50,000 grant from the European Union

XCellR8 aims for the complete eradication of animal testing for chemical ingredients used in cosmetics, personal care, and household products. The laboratory uses a variety of human cell-based methods including artificial models of human skin and eyes reconstructed from cells donated by cosmetic surgery patients.

XCellR8 claims to be the only industrial testing laboratory developing new testing methods to eliminate all animal elements.

The EU funding was provided by Horizon 2020, which is an EU research and innovation programme. The grant was provided to help start the next phase in developing and evaluating XCellR8's tests aimed to identify the level of harm a new cosmetic or personal care product could cause to humans.

This test can be used as a preliminary screen to gain basic information about likely toxicity of chemical ingredients. Equipped with this information, manufacturers can identify and eliminate potentially toxic substances from development at an early stage and before human trials.

The use of human rather than animal cells in testing is proven to be more accurate when reviewing the impacts of chemical ingredients on people. The EU funding offers crucial support for XCellR8 to develop its test and move closer to complete approval by regulators.

Ultimately, this could enable the chemical ingredients industry and its manufacturing customers to stop using animal testing for acute toxicity altogether.

XCellR8's co-founder and managing director Carol Treasure said: “Our acute toxicity testing method is aimed at meeting both the safety demands of EU REACH regulations (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals 2006) and the ethical demands of the EU Cosmetic Regulation.

"We are confident it can do this by using human skin cells that will give robust test results for human toxicity, which are more accurate and reproducible than any animal test.

“It would also reduce the costs associated with animal testing and respond to the overwhelming demand from consumers worldwide for non-animal tested products."