Chemicals are an integral part of our lives. The functions they provide are used in manufacturing and industrial applications that service our societies. They are used to make, and are present in, the things we use everyday – clothing, medications, cosmetics, electronics. They also form the materials and devices that heat our homes, purify our water and protect crops.  

Yet, while chemicals provide benefits, they can also harm people’s health and the environment. Industry has a responsibility to produce and use chemicals safely and governments have a responsibility to ensure this through their regulatory frameworks. This requires the development of information on chemicals. Chemical testing is essential yet often very resource-intensive and time-consuming. 

The OECD Mutual Acceptance of Data (MAD) system is a multilateral agreement which ensures quality data for regulatory decision-making while saving governments and chemical producers over EUR 309 million every year by facilitating the sharing of the results of a variety of non-clinical safety studies done on chemicals. The OECD MAD system requires that testing be carried out using OECD standards for test methods (OECD Test Guidelines) and for data quality and integrity (OECD Principles of Good Laboratory Practice - GLP).

OECD member countries participate in the MAD System and the following non-OECD member countries: Argentina, Brazil, India, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa and Thailand.

All OECD member countries, as well as non-member provisional and full adherents, participate in MAD but to different degrees. As shown in the documents, the determining factor is whether a government’s national GLP compliance monitoring programme has undergone a successful OECD evaluation.

OECD member countries participate in the MAD System and the following non-OECD member countries are full adherents to MAD: Argentina, Brazil, India, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa and Thailand.

A non OECD country can participate in the MAD system, beginning first as a provisional adherent, and then, once the national GLP Compliance Monitoring Programme of that country has been successfully evaluated by OECD, they can become a full adherent. Currently, while the majority of OECD countries have GLP compliance monitoring programmes which have been evaluated by OECD, not all countries have been evaluated. OECD countries and adherents to MAD are only required to accept data from countries whose monitoring programmes have been evaluated.

Countries participating in the MAD system are only required to accept test study data if the product being tested is within the scope of the national GLP compliance monitoring programme. The scope of a monitoring programme can include non-clinical safety testing of test items contained in:

1. pharmaceutical products
2. pesticide products
3. cosmetic products
4. veterinary drugs
5. food additives
6. feed additives
7. industrial chemicals 

If the scope of a compliance monitoring programme does not include one of these products (e.g., cosmetics), then other countries are not required to accept test study data on cosmetics from that country.

1. The study must have been conducted according to OECD Test Guideines and OECD Principles of GLP;
2. The study must have been conducted in a test facility which has been inspected by a national GLP compliance monitoring programme and;
3. The national GLP compliance monitoring programme must have undergone a successful evaluation by OECD.