The highlights of the Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS)’s Working Group on Methodologies 29 November meeting, have been recently published.
This is relevant for the in silico community because the entire meeting was focused on physiologically based pharmacokinetic modelling (PBPK) and ended with a statement that the SCCS is expected to take up a standardised framework for PBPK examples and incorporate it into their Notes of Guidance.
The SCCS Notes of Guidance are currently aimed at cosmetic ingredients; however, they already contain significant sections regarding in silico evidence, and the call for a structured framework is exciting news. The Committee also discussed Next Generation Risk Assessments (NGRA), which integrate in silico evidence.
No additional details were given on the nature of the standardised framework, but the call for a harmonised structure for in silico within the field of cosmetics further highlights how necessary it is to develop standards for in silico for healthcare applications. We will utilise this knowledge to both follow the developments of the SCCS as well as provide a case study to policymakers as to the necessity of good standards of practice.
