From Vision to Reality: Five Years of the Botanical Safety Consortium

The Botanical Safety Consortium (BSC) was launched in 2019 to unite scientists from government, industry, academia, and non-profit organizations in advancing the safety evaluation of botanicals as complex mixtures.

The paper, From Vision to Reality: Five Years of the Botanical Safety Consortium, reflects on the consortium’s progress and outlines what comes next. Over its first five years, the BSC has:

• Built a diverse membership network spanning more than 50 organizations
• Developed a reference botanical library to support method evaluation
• Created a standardized literature review template for compiling and comparing botanical safety information
• Conducted case studies using in vitro and in silico approaches to see if they are suitable for botanicals as complex mixtures
• Fostered open collaboration and data sharing among sectors to strengthen confidence in new tools and methods

The paper also looks ahead to the next phase of work: integrating high-throughput, mechanistic approaches into botanical safety assessments and continuing to build confidence in new approach methodologies for complex natural products.

This milestone highlights what can be achieved when the scientific community works together toward a shared goal of advancing evidence-based, human-relevant safety science.

Read the full paper here: Mitchell et al., 2025. From Vision to Reality: Five Years of the Botanical Safety Consortium. Pharmaceutical Biology. https://doi.org/10.1080/13880209.2025.2583832