Yordas Group Hails Inclusion of EU-Funded GRACIOUS Project in Updated OECD Guidance on Grouping of Chemicals
Lancaster, 27 January 2025
Yordas Group, a leading global provider of scientific and regulatory consultancy services, today announced its profound satisfaction following the publication of the OECD Guidance on Grouping of Chemicals, Third Edition. The updated guidance document cites the work of the EU-funded GRACIOUS project (H2020), in which Yordas was a key partner, marking a significant milestone in the global effort to streamline chemical risk assessment.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published the updated guidance as part of its Series on Testing and Assessment. The document, officially identified as ENV/CBC/MONO(2025)19, sets out harmonised and flexible methodologies for grouping chemicals into assessment groups for human risk assessment of combined exposure.
Advancing Chemical Grouping and Read-Across
The updated OECD Guidance is pivotal for regulators worldwide as it promotes a highly efficient and scientifically robust approach to chemical safety. The document strongly advocates for a hazard-driven criteria framework, using mechanistic information on toxicity—such as common modes of action (MoA) or adverse outcome pathways (AOP)—to group chemicals through a structured Weight of Evidence (WoE) approach. This method allows closely related chemicals to be assessed as a group, maximizing the use of existing data, minimizing the need for new animal testing, and improving assessment efficiency.
A crucial underpinning for this advanced grouping methodology is the work developed under the GRACIOUS project. As a partner in the consortium, Yordas contributed to the development of an Innovative Science-based Framework for Grouping and Read-Across of Nanomaterials and Nanoforms. The Framework streamlines the process for risk assessment by logically grouping nanomaterials and nanoforms thereby allowing extrapolation between (read-across) nanomaterials and reducing the need to assess exposure to and toxicity on a case by case basis.
A Yordas Group spokesperson commented on the announcement:
"We are immensely proud to see the framework and concepts pioneered by the GRACIOUS consortium recognised and officially incorporated into a flagship OECD guidance document. This underscores the quality and practical application of the science we developed to manage the complexities of nanomaterial safety. Our contribution to GRACIOUS has now helped set a gold standard for grouping not just nanoforms, but chemicals across the board, driving forward regulatory science and supporting global chemical safety goals."
Commitment to Scientific Efficiency
The successful integration of the GRACIOUS framework into the OECD guidance demonstrates the increasing global commitment to adopting next-generation risk assessment tools that are both efficient and protective.
By applying the principles of grouping and read-across, the Guidance helps regulators overcome the challenge of assessing the vast number of chemicals on the market. Yordas’s continued involvement in these high-level international projects reaffirms its position at the forefront of regulatory science and its dedication to informing effective and ethical risk assessment practices globally.
The official OECD Guidance on Grouping of Chemicals, Third Edition can be accessed here.
Further details about the GRACIOUS project are available here.
Contact
For more information, please contact:
Malcolm Stewart
VP, Global Sales and Marketing, Yordas Group
