Gaithersburg, Md. – The PETA International Science Consortium Ltd., Imperial Brands PLC, Altria Client Services (ALCS), British American Tobacco (BAT) PLC, and Philip Morris International Inc have joined together to donate equipment that can help to replace the use of animals in respiratory testing with more human-relevant, non-animal test methods.
The equipment – worth $110,000 and manufactured by Germany-based VITROCELL Systems – was donated to the Institute for In Vitro Sciences (IIVS), a non-profit laboratory in Gaithersburg that conducts animal-free testing. It will be used in the IIVS in vitro respiratory toxicology laboratory, which helps companies assess the effects of tobacco, nicotine, and other aerosols on the human respiratory tract. Results from these tests will also help to show regulatory agencies, such as the US Food and Drug Administration, that non-animal methods are accurate and effective and can be used instead of tests on animals.
