About Us
PharmEthos: Preclinical Pharmacology and Animal Ethics Compliance Solutions
PharmEthos Consultancy strives to enhance your preclinical in vivo pharmacology, toxicology and pharmacokinetics research endeavours with a comprehensive suite of advice services tailored for optimal outcomes and ethical/animal welfare excellence. Our staff are familiar with GLP, GMP and NATA laboratory practice, and are highly experienced with global ethical standards, so based on our experiences, we offer high quality research design and optimisation strategies to streamline and maximise experimental outcomes tailored to your needs. Our services will be at highly competitive prices. Our philosophy is to make a contribution to improve the outcome of the global medical research endeavour, not solely for personal wealth.
Our History
PharmEthos was born from my frustration with the frequent issues encountered in Animal Ethics Committee (AEC) applications while serving as an AEC Scientific Advisory member (Category B) and Co-Chair at the University of Queensland. I observed that many applications were poorly written and designed, often lacking in justification, adherence to basic welfare practices (‘The Code’, and the 3Rs), and essential statistical elements. Furthermore, excessive scientific jargon frequently obscured the research goals from the lay members of the Committee, leading to misunderstanding and misinterpretation. As a scientist I was usually able to grasp the goals the researchers were trying to portray, yet justified confusion among non-scientific committee members often necessitated document resubmission for clarification and improvements in the application, even out-right rejection. This was commonly followed by multiple submission rounds of an application between AEC and researcher that ensured significant delays in the research progression, and quite often led to application rejection. I quickly learned the importance of crafting research proposals that were clear, lay, well-structured, and easily understandable by all committee members, yet were scientifically and statistically robust and accurate. This approach when adopted to my own research significantly increased my chances of a rapid and smooth approval process. Since I have been Chief Investigator in over 20 AEC projects accross multiple species.
My success in navigating the AEC application process became well-known within my scientific community, leading to requests from various research groups for assistance with their own applications. Over time, I have provided consultation support for experimetnal design and AEC submissions at institutions such as the University of Queensland, Griffith University, the University of Adelaide, Monash University and the University of Melbourne.
PharmEthos aims to bridge the common gaps in Animal Ethics Committee Applications, offering expert guidance in preparing AEC applications, beginning with sound and robust experimental design, and ensuring the final applications are comprehensible, compliant, and well-justified prior to submission, ultimately facilitating a more efficient review process.
The use of animals in research is a privilege, but also currently still a necessity if we are to advance medical technology, health and improve the therapeutic treatments of common and rare disease. Contrary to many researcher's beliefs, the AECs generally know and respect this. So a well written, welfare justified and scientifically sound research application to the committee is paramount for such medical research.
PharmEthos is there to aid you obtain this.
Rink-Jan Lohman, Founder