The Rs 11,300 crore opportunity in alternatives to animal testing for health and beauty products is waiting to be tapped

Pamela Anderson has kept Baywatch at bay. Alicia Silverstone has shed her furs (read clothes) for it. We are talking brand “cruelty-free.” Given the general furore against the use of animals in testing of pharma and beauty products on the rise, the tag “cruelty-free” packs in a lot of punch.

Major pharma and lifestyle companies are seeking cover under the tag on account of both, public and government pressure, and it is time for the country’s entrepreneurs to make use of this phenomenal shift to alternatives of animal testing. The market is worth Rs 11,300 crore on a global scale, the melting pot of which is India.

India is a hotbed of health and lifestyle products, be it production, testing, or consumption. Months after the historic ruling of the Madras High Court on the Novartis episode, there has been the proverbial tidal wave that has swept Indian shores. Generics is just one part of the story. The wave has left behind a fertile ground for contract research organizations (CROs), outsourced testing services, and other such organizations to flourish. Meant for both domestic and overseas pharmaceutical and beauty products companies, they are virtually the pumping stations for the entire global pharma and lifestyle ecosystem.

The only problem in the rosy picture is that the red color comes from the blood of poor creatures who cannot speak for themselves—animals. Use of animals for tests and experiments ranging from the innocuous to the lethal has triggered a revolution of sorts amongst responsible consumers, the government, and even sympathetic employees of pharma and lifestyle companies. The extent of cruelty that these animals are subjected to during numerous tests done for the “benefit” of the human race has left many of them baying for the combined corporate medico-lifestyle blood.

The initial excitement has now transformed into laws or guidelines in many countries that have banned or partially banned the use of animals in such experiments. One such law that is bound to dry up the collective pharma well-being business in India is the partial ban by the European Union on production and marketing of all cosmetic products involving animal testing by 2009, whether alternative non-animal testing methods are available or not. These products can be marketed in the EU till 2013, after which a complete ban will be put in place.

Considering the aftermath needs, India will have to stop shop by 2013. Clearly, a crisis is in the offing. As Krishna says in the Bhagawat Gita, in times of crisis, He reincarnates and rescues the world again and again. The authority, it seems, has been delegated.

Thus was born “cruelty-free.”

Why alternatives?
In the spotlessly shinning new-age laboratories of the world’s leading educational institutions and companies dispensing healthcare and beauty products, Hitler still lives. So do his concentration camps. The so-called “guinea pigs” range from guinea pigs to rabbits, cats, dogs, monkeys and chimpanzees. The suffering and pain inflicted on the animals is horrendous. Ninety percent of the animals either die during the tests or are euthanized subsequently.

It is not just the mortality rate that is the issue, though. Medical experts around the world have leveled serious doubts as to the efficacy and use of these experiments. Empirical evidence shows that the extrapolation of the test results from animals to humans is a dicey affair. Medicines on which rats have survived have proved lethal to humans. There are several tests that show widely varying effects, even from mice to rats. When extrapolation from one sub-species to another is fraught with such perils, what can one say about extrapolating from mice to humans?

Incidentally, penicillin, the world’s first antibiotic, has proved fatal to rats in 70 percent of cases. What if Alexander Fleming had decided to test it on rats before testing it on humans? The very concept of “life-saving drugs” would have been shaken.

The issue has gained wide publicity, thanks to campaigns by organizations such as People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), People for Animals, and personalities such as Menaka Gandhi. The repercussions are visible far and wide. Fur is already a much hated fashion accessory on the ramp, especially given that Pamela Anderson, Alicia Silverstone, and their ilk have appeared nude on cover posters and ads actively campaigning the cause of animals. Companies are falling over one another to claim that their products are “cruelty-free.” Leading beauty product companies such as Avon, Amway, L’oreal, and Estee Lauder are now shifting to non-violent testing procedures to home in on the “cruelty-free” tag.

The effect
If you don’t test on animals what do you test them on? A question asked crudely, but pretty much on every tongue that is going to be affected by the rising bile against animal testing. What are the alternatives?

The alternatives are computer programs that simulate the functions of a live animal or a plant tissue that can mimic the reactions produced by animal organs and human tissues to produce the actual results. These alternatives are not only non-violent, but are much more reliable, efficient, faster, and cost-effective; to the extent that you are left wondering why animals have been used in the a first place.

Easy availability is the only reason why animals have been traditionally used, of course; but with the rising number of corporate healthcare and beauty product companies such as Avon, Amway, and L’oreal endorsing the cause, all that is changing now. Sympathetic detonation has taken over, and many more are following suit. Post-2013, there will be a shortfall of around 1,000 crore lab animals in the EU alone.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the US Army is now using Topkat, a computer program that is used to determine the irritation and toxicity levels of new drugs. There are several other such mathematical and computer models that incorporate various reactions of the human body to certain ailments. There are also computerized virtual organs available to test the absorption and metabolism patterns of a drug on a particular human organ before testing it on an actual person.

Lately, human tissues grown in vitro, that is, in test tubes, from donated human cells have replaced animals to quite some extent in major pharmaceutical laboratories. Last year, some $800 million were spent the world over on CROs specializing in the testing of new drugs using such alternatives. Several startup companies have cropped up offering human tissue engineering solutions. Pharmagene Laboratories of Royston, England, was one of the first few companies that used only human tissues and sophisticated simulation testing programs in place of animals for drug development and testing. It studies human genes and analyzes the effect of certain drugs. MatTek, Admet, and Xceleron in the US are a few others that grow human tissues in test kits and ship them as and when an order is placed.

Given the skills of the Indian workforce in computational biology and human engineering, there is no reason why CROs already working in the arena of drug testing cannot develop their own computer simulations or human tissues for drug testing. The samples can be used either in their own laboratories or retailed to educational institutes or pharma and beauty product companies. The programs and test-kits would be like any other product, except that, they would not only be saving billions of innocent lives every year, but also bring home Rs 11,300 crore.

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