Kalamazoo, MI-based life sciences company CeeTox announced today that it has been awarded a $25.9 million contract under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ToxCast program to develop alternatives to animal testing for the toxicity of chemicals used in drugs, cosmetics, and personal care products. Rather than testing animals, CeeTox will test products on cells in cultures.
CeeTox uses proprietary mathematical algorithms on the data generated from cell-based models to predict human levels of toxicity in a given compound. CeeTox will initially screen up to 1,000 chemicals as part of the contract. Those results will be combined with data already being generated through the other 500 rapid-chemical tests used in the EPA’s ToxCast Program. The contract could potentially increase to where 10,000 chemicals are tested over the next five years.
“We are excited to be working with the EPA on this program,” Tim Mitchell, president of CeeTox, said in a press release. “It will ultimately deliver better science at a lower cost, without the need for animal testing.”
CeeTox, founded in 2003, is a contract research organization focused on in vitro toxicity and safety screening of new products including drug candidates, cosmetics, personal care products, agricultural chemicals, and household chemicals.
