News on non-animal methods
JANUARY 19 - 23, 2026
NEWS, REPORTS & POSITION STATEMENTS
1. Endotoxin testing milestone reached with European Pharmacopoeia’s animal shift
From 1 January 2026, EU pharmaceutical manufacturers will need to use advanced alternatives such as the Monocyte-Activation Test (MAT) or the Bacterial Endotoxins Test (BET) instead of animal-based testing methods. Both come with sustainability benefits, given that pharma manufacturers in the EU will no longer need to rely on animal-based testing methods that use limited natural resources like the horseshoe crab.
A free joint symposium will be held on February 25 – 26th by the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & HealthCare (EDQM) and the European Partnership for Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing (EPAA) to support industry stakeholders. The session will discuss the roadmap and global approaches for this transition.
2. EMA and FDA set common principles for AI in medicine development
As emphasised in the European Commission’s Biotech Act proposal, AI holds great promise as a tool to accelerate the path from innovation to safe and effective medicines. European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have jointly identified ten principles for good artificial intelligence (AI) practice in the medicines lifecycle.
“The guiding principles of good AI practice in drug development are a first step of a renewed EU-US cooperation in the field of novel medical technologies.The principles are a good showcase of how we can work together on the two sides of the Atlantic to preserve our leading role in the global innovation race, while ensuring the highest level of patient safety.” – says Olivér Várhelyi, European Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare.
3. Advancing the frontier of rare disease modeling: A critical appraisal of in silico technologies
Rare diseases affect over 300 million people worldwide and pose unique research challenges. In silico approaches, such as mechanistic models, machine learning, and simulations, offer scalable tools for disease characterisation, drug discovery, and virtual trials.
A new review categorises these methods by context of use (COU), critically appraises their strengths and limitations, and identifies barriers to translation, highlighting key opportunities and ongoing challenges in advancing computational strategies for rare disease research.
INTERVIEWS, NOMINATIONS & AWARDS
4. ARPA‑H awards teams set to bioprint universally matched organs on demand
The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA‑H), an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced awarding $176.8 million to the research and development teams (Wyss Institute at Harvard University, MIT, University of Colorado Boulder, and Columbia University) leading the Personalized Regenerative Immunocompetent Nanotechnology Tissue (PRINT) program.
PRINT will use state-of-the-art bioprinting technology and a regenerative medicine approach to 3D-print personalizedon-demand human organs that do not require immunosuppressive drugs. The goal is to use either a patient’s own cells or cells from a biobank to quickly – within hours – produce immune-matched replacement organs, such as kidneys, hearts, and livers.
5. Shortlist released for Lush Prize 2026
Sixty nominations representing projects in 25 countries have been shortlisted for the £250,000 Lush Prize.
Public Awareness campaigns from Australia to Canada, Training scientists from Argentina to Nigeria, and five shortlisted projects from Brazil: the 2026 shortlist shows the expansion of animal-free science and animal protection campaigns around the world. The Pro Anima scientific Committee is part of the Public Awareness shortlist.
Winners will be announced at the Lush awards ceremony in London, UK, in May.
6. ITW of Emulate, Inc’s CEO, Jim Corbett: The first inning of a new research paradigm
As regulators, pharma, and researchers search for more predictive tools, Emulate, Inc’s CEO, Jim Corbett, argues that Organ-on-a-Chip technology is still early: “If this were a nine-inning baseball game, we’re in the first inning — but the direction is very clear.” The market is significantly growing: “Our fastest-growing market right now is pharma and biopharma. They are adopting this technology and finding ways to utilize it as much as possible.”
TOOLS, PLATFORMS, CALLS
7. Call for Papers: NAMs for regulatory assessment
Oxford Academic: “Getting New Approach Methods (NAMs) into Environmental Assessment, Management, and Practice”
Regulatory agencies worldwide are calling for New Approach Methods (NAMs). NAMs are defined as “any technology, methodology, approach or combination thereof that can be used to replace, reduce, or refine animal toxicity testing and allow for more rapid or effective prioritization and/or assessment of chemicals.” The objective of this special series is to showcase studies detailing how NAMs are being developed to meet adopter needs (e.g., within government and industry), as well as how NAMs are being used to inform regulation, policy, and decision making. The special series will also highlight how NAMs are being applied in cases of environmental risk (and/or impact) assessment and management.
Submissions deadline: February 28, 2026.
NAM Journal: “Supporting the development and implementation of a Roadmap towards phasing out animal testing for chemical safety assessments — opportunities, challenges and paradigm shifts”
Currently, safety assessments are mostly based on in vivo assays. While there are several relevant non-animal approaches to support human and environmental chemical safety assessments, there is still limited integration in the regulatory context.This Special Issue includes a set of invited contributions from EPAA activities, covering all the relevant standard information requirements, across all relevant legislations covering human and Environmental safety identifying short‑, medium- and long-term actions to support the transition.
Submission deadline: August 30, 2026.
8. Call for new members of the EPAA Mirror Group
The European Partnership for Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing (EPAA) is looking for new members to join its Mirror Group. The Mirror Group (MG) is a consultative body which provides advice and comments on the implementation of the EPAA’s Action Programme, project proposals and their implementation. It also performs these tasks for the EPAA’s outreach, communication and dissemination activities.
As an interface between the EPAA and expert stakeholders from academia, (national) 3R centres, patient groups, animal research and welfare NGOs, the MG acts as a multiplier of the EPAA’s work. Members of all these interest groups are welcome to apply. To apply, submit your motivation letter and CV no later than 26 January 2026.
9. Data Science Talent Awards 2026
Young Data Scientist of the Year 2026
Are you a young data scientist with a compelling story to tell about the role you played in an important data science initiative in the life sciences industry? Can you demonstrate impact and innovation? If you can answer yes to these questions then you could win the 2026 Young Data Scientist of the Year Award which seeks to recognize and nurture emerging talent.
Data Science Team of the Year 2026
This award seeks to recognize the importance of team work and the power of collaboration to address a specific challenge in the life sciences industry. Pistoia Alliance is looking for evidence of team excellence and innovation with a focus on the business impact that can be achieved through intra-company or cross company collaboration.
Submission Deadline for the two awards: February 20, 2026.
Check out our calls interface
INDUSTRY, BIOTECH & PARTNERSHIPS
10. Thermo Fisher Scientific and NVIDIA launch AI revolution in the laboratory
Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. announced a strategic collaboration with NVIDIA to develop AI-based solutions and large-scale laboratory automation. This effort will leverage NVIDIA’s artificial intelligence (AI) platform and Thermo Fisher Scientific’s solutions to progressively increase laboratory automation, accuracy, and speed. The two companies are working together to evolve the digital foundation that powers scientific instruments, laboratory infrastructure, and data—connecting them to powerful AI solutions, helping scientists reduce manual steps and accelerate scientific progress.
“Artificial intelligence coupled with laboratory automation will transform the way scientific work is done,” said Gianluca Pettiti, Executive Vice President.
Read more (FR)
SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES & PROTOCOLS
11. Automated workflow for high-throughput blood vessel-on-a-chip
There is a growing demand for automated organ-on-a-chip platforms that are compatible with off-the-shelf robotic liquid-handling systems and plate readers to improve reproducibility and scalable analysis.
A new research work presents an end-to-end automated method for fabricating tubular blood vessel models (AngioPlate384) designed to support integration with liquid-handling systems and large-scale analysis. The model enables the generation of over 100 perfusable blood vessels fully embedded in hydrogel and supported by stromal cells, allowing both luminal and interstitial flow. This platform offers a robust and scalable approach to generating customizable blood vessel-on-a-chip models for vascular biology studies, disease modeling, and preclinical testing.
Read the publication in Advanced Healthcare Materials
12. Multi-omics qualification of an organ-on-a-chip model of osteolytic bone metastasis
Bone is a primary site for metastasis in breast cancer, with up to 70 % of patients with metastatic breast cancer developing osteolytic bone lesions, wherein cancer cells drive osteoclast resorption of bone. However, progress in developing therapies is limited by the absence of predictive in vitro models.
A new study developed a 3D organ-on-a-chip tri-culture model of the osteolytic metastatic niche, in which researchers verify expected bone and breast cancer cell behaviours. Importantly, they successfully validate their organ-chip against a dataset from the gold standard in vivo preclinical model of osteolytic breast metastases, using transcriptomics and proteomics to confirm strong alignment of gene expression profiles with in vivo mouse expression. Additionally, the multi-omics analysis sheds new light on both expected and novel molecular pathways for therapeutic targeting, demonstrating the utility of the organ-chip as a potential replacement for preclinical mouse models of breast cancer metastases in bone.
Read the publication in Acta Biomaterialia
