Our reflections from Eurotox 2026
The Vitis Regulatory team was pleased to attend 60th Congress of the European Societies of Toxicology in Vienna, which followed the theme of “Toxicology without borders”. The conference focused on scientific advancements, particularly new approaches in toxicology.
While we usually send a few delegates to the conference each year, for the first time in a number of years we also had a trade stand in the exhibition area, which gave us the opportunity to have many interesting conversations with clients old and new as well as regulators and other consultants.
Our key reflections on the event are as follows:
Assessment of Endocrine disruption (ED) assessment is complex and evolving – The team attended a Continuing Professional Development course focussed on the challenges of endocrine assessment alongside participants from industry and regulators. We also attended several presentations relating to ED, including how chemicals regulations generally can learn from Biocides and Plant protection Products. ED assessment remains an area of considerable complexity, with methodology and regulatory expectations continuing to develop. Sessions like this are a great opportunity for us to hear about the latest developments and the challenges faced in these assessments. The opportunity to hear from regulators directly is invaluable and Vitis colleagues gained valuable insights into dealing with incomplete datasets, deciding when further testing is appropriate and how to apply a weight of evidence approach to differentiate between ED Categories 1, 2 and no ED, which is a challenge even for data-rich cases. It was evident that no single organisation has all the answers in relation to ED assessment and that following developments in this area will be key for our scientists for many years to come.
New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) are closer to becoming regulatory reality – There was a focus on integrating the evidence base rather than seeking a like-for-like replacement of traditional testing. Diverse information: traditional studies, omics, in silico predictions, mechanistic data etc. can all play a part in hazard assessment. The team heard about work under way to develop NAMs for challenging endpoints such as DART alongside the regulatory perspective on what needs to happen to move these approaches into regulatory practice. It was apparent that regulators, including ECHA, are investing in this area, but we are still a long way from regulatory acceptance of NAMs for more complicated toxicology endpoints. For the time being, submission of NAMs alongside the current data requirements was suggested to increase confidence in the new technologies. We look forward to seeing progress in regulatory review and acceptance of NAMs.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to assist in handling complex data but confidence needs to be built – AI approaches hold promise; some of the exciting applications presented were the building next generation AOPs (Adverse Outcome Pathways) and potentially transformative machine learning techniques to characterise chemical Mode of Action. The team recognises that scientific data are complex and often disordered and AI has the potential to assess sources quickly and dispassionately. However, the risks cannot be ignored. How can transparency be maintained if toxicology becomes increasingly reliant on complex self-learning systems? AI is definitely not immune from mistakes and can struggle to interpret multiple data sources with appropriate weighting, therefore expert human input remains vital.
Thank you to everyone who connected with us in Vienna. If you would like to explore any of these topics further, please reach out. We would love to continue the conversations.