TSAR: Tracking System for Alternative test methods Review, Validation and Approval in the Context of EU Regulations on Chemicals

The Joint Research Centre's EU Reference Laboratory for Alternative to Animal Testing (EURL ECVAM) has produced a Tracking System for Alternative methods towards Regulatory acceptance (TSAR). 

TSAR provides information on the status of alternative methods as they progress from scientific protocols to validation for being used in a regulatory context. The process of validation and regulatory approval has been broken down into a number of steps. Although this is a continuous process that may, sometimes, also involve some iterations, for practical reasons it has been broken down into two parts:

• Review and Validation
• Regulatory Approval

These have, in turn, been broken down into several stages. The methods whose status of validation or regulatory acceptance are tracked here have been grouped by the relevant endpoint they cover.

A revised version of TSAR, launched in 2016, provides enhanced visibility of the progress a test method makes from first being proposed for validation through to its eventual acceptance for regulatory safety and efficacy testing of chemicals or biological agents. TSAR includes summary descriptions of individual methods and all available records associated with different steps of the validation and acceptance process.

TSAR disseminates information on test methods not only under consideration by EURL ECVAM but by all member and observer organisations of the International Collaboration on Alternative Testing Methods (ICATM) representing the EU, Canada, USA, Republic of Korea, Japan, Brazil and China.

The database is free.