FDA Guidance on Immunotoxicity Testing Supports Use of Alternatives

In February, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued draft guidance on “Nonclinical Safety Evaluation of the Immunotoxic Potential of Drugs and Biologics.” This guidance supplements previously issued recommendations on nonclinical evaluations of immunotoxic potential and is intended to assist sponsors in such evaluations. The guidance includes several specific recommendations on assessing potential for dermal sensitization:

• FDA no longer recommends that sponsors conduct the murine local lymph node assay to assess the sensitization potential of topical drug products due to the limitations of the assay.
• As an alternative to accepted guinea pig tests, FDA will consider a battery of in silico, in chemico, and in vitro studies that have been shown to adequately predict human skin sensitization with an accuracy similar to existing in vivo methods.

The draft FDA guidance is available at https://www.fda.gov/media/135312/download.