Chemical Makers Team Up With IBM

The European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC) and five of its members—the chemical associations of Germany, France, the U.K., Italy, and Spain—have launched a new initiative, ReachLink, to facilitate the registration of chemicals under REACH, the European Union's new program to register, evaluate, and authorize chemicals.

Under REACH, around 30,000 substances will have to be registered with the European Chemicals Agency by 2018. All companies importing or manufacturing chemicals in quantities above 1 metric ton per year have to submit registration dossiers.

Key to ReachLink is SIEFreach, a software tool developed by IBM to help companies that have been assigned to SIEFs; that is, substance information exchange forums. The forum concept was devised by the EU to minimize chemical testing, particularly on animals, by assigning all producers of a given chemical to one SIEF in which companies will exchange safety and toxicology data.

According to CEFIC, IBM software, hardware, and services will help ease the exchange of information between companies preparing to submit dossiers to the European Chemicals Agency. IBM is also providing a team that will staff an applications help desk for end users.