The Animal-Free Safety Assessment (AFSA) Collaboration has been awarded the Major Scientific Collaboration recognition at the Lush Prize 2026, the largest award in the non-animal testing sector. It’s a well-deserved acknowledgement of a collaboration that is doing some of the most important practical work in this space.
For those unfamiliar, AFSA is a unique partnership between non-profit, corporate and philanthropic organisations working to advance the acceptance and use of animal-free safety science across regulatory frameworks worldwide. Its members include L’Oreal, Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Givaudan, Lush, and Humane Society International, among others. What makes it unusual is that these are companies and organisations that might normally be competitors or sit on opposite sides of a debate, working together towards a shared goal.
We were proud that our Senior Scientist, Dr Tom Ward, represented XCellR8 at an AFSA workshop in Loch Lomond last year, hosted by Humane World for Animals. The workshop brought together international experts from regulatory bodies, industry, academia and method developers to tackle a specific and pressing problem: despite legislation stating that animal testing should be used only as a “last resort,” animals continue to be used for endpoints where scientifically suitable non-animal methods already exist.
The group developed decision tree frameworks that provide step-by-step guidance for applying non-animal approaches across chemical regulations. These cover endpoints including acute oral toxicity, skin sensitisation, and eye and skin irritation and corrosion, all areas where XCellR8 has extensive expertise and most of which scientific consensus already supports non-animal approaches. The frameworks were subsequently published in Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, giving them the peer-reviewed credibility needed for regulatory uptake.
What made the workshop particularly valuable was its collaborative nature. Representatives from regulatory authorities, industry and organisations like the OECD worked side by side to ensure these decision trees would be practical, globally applicable and aligned with existing regulatory processes. That’s exactly the kind of work that closes the gap between what the science can do and what regulators will accept.
The timing of AFSA’s Lush Prize recognition feels significant. The EU published its Roadmap towards phasing out animal testing for chemical safety assessments on 1 June 2026. The UK government published its own strategy in November 2025. Both documents emphasise the need for exactly the kind of structured, collaborative frameworks that AFSA is producing. The decision trees developed at the Loch Lomond workshop are a practical example of what that transition looks like in action.
For us at XCellR8, being involved in this work matters. We’ve been delivering animal-free in vitro testing for 18 years, and we know that the science is ready for many endpoints. But having validated methods isn’t enough on its own. The regulatory frameworks, the guidance documents, and the confidence of the people making decisions all need to catch up. That’s what AFSA is helping to make happen, and it’s why this recognition is so well placed.
Congratulations to everyone involved in the AFSA Collaboration. The momentum is building.
If you’d like to know more about how animal-free testing works in practice, or how it could apply to your products, we’d welcome the conversation. Get in touch at info@x-cellr8.com.
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