Statement of the Forinvitox Expert meeting 17 June 2008 in Stockholm, Sweden

The purpose of the Expert meeting was to make an analysis of the retrieved data from WP1-3 and to identify the problems, questions and bottlenecks in transferring in vitro methods from the early stage of research innovations and to commercial use by the end users. The aim of the Expert meeting was to propose actions and specific goals that the Forum event in May 2009 should meet.

From the Expert meeting it was concluded that the intellectual, cultural, financial and legal
(concerning dissemination of results) gap between the inventors and the final users needs to be identified. To be able to bridge the identified gap there is a need of intellectual and cultural
bridges like brokers, meetings and networking. Forinvitox could be one of these bridges.

Also financial bridges like EC or national calls, specified for verification of methods and/or other steps of the transfer process, are needed as well as collaboration with final users and CROs.

Concerning technology transfer from FP-projects the dissemination has to be more effective and the results of the projects should also be public. As the management of the FP-projects is very important this part needs to take an extended part of the project budget. The management should be designed more like the management for large projects within companies.

The development process was also discussed as important to improve the technology transfer of in vitro tests. Essential parts for the transfer of an invention into a commercially applicable test method are the transformation to a less complex method, robustness of the method, GLP, validation, different competence for the different steps of the process, and the early involvement of regulators. Instruments to facilitate the transfer were identified as clear guidance and criteria for validation, showing good and bad examples of technology transfer, cookery-book for the steps of the transfer process and matching inventions with applications. A list of actions, specific goals and questions that the Forum event should meet for the different issues was also summed up at the Expert meeting.

The external experts participating in the meeting were:
Rostislav Cihák  
Research Institute for Organic Syntheses
Centre of Ecology, Toxicology and Analytics, Czech Republic
Gavin Maxwell  
Project Leader, General Toxicology
Unilever- Safety and Environmental Assurance Centre, UK
Leila Risteli   
Director, Research and Innovation Services,
University of Oulu, Finland
Odile de Silva  
L’Oreal, France
Bas Blaauboer  
Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences
Division of Toxicology
Utrecht University, The Netherlands