BOTOX manufacturer Allergan Inc. recently announced that the FDA has approved a cell-based test method for BOTOX that replaces animal use. It’s a step in the right direction for the cosmetics and pharmaceuticals industries, as BOTOX has multiple clinical applications.

The fully in-vitro and cell-based BOTOX test will be implemented immediately in the United States. Every new batch of BOTOX produced requires testing. Allergan estimates that the new test will reduce the use of animal-based testing for BOTOX by up to 95 percent or more over the next three years, as other regulatory agencies around the world approve this new test.

The usual BOTOX testing method is conducted using mice who are injected with varying amounts of BOTOX to determine lethal potency of the batch. As a result, hundreds of thousands of mice experience considerable pain and die by asphyxiation. Approximately 74,000 mice are used in a single BOTOX manufacture’s lab in one year and pharmaceutical companies use about 600,000 mice worldwide per year alone.

As is often the case, the new nonanimal method has many advantages over using animals to test for potency, including greater precision and consistency in the data collected.

Learn more about animal tests and alternatives >