The agreement intended to find new alternatives to animal testing and to collaborate with all those concerned with the validation of new tests in order to speed up their acceptance and implementation.
Today's announcement closely mirrors efforts made in the UK, which saw 500 eminent scientists and doctors across the UK signing up to a similar agreement drawn up by The Research Defence Society.
This in turn echoed statements by the Royal Society in 2004 and the House of Lords select committee on animals in scientific procedures in 2002.
Industry associations acknowledged that the increasing pace of scientific progress would help speed up the development of new approaches, as well as their validation and regulatory acceptance.
Brian Ager from the EFPIA, the bio-pharmaceutical industry federation said the development of new bioscience technologies such as genomics and proteomics would help to further progress novel approaches to safety assessment that should, in time, reduce the reliance on animals.
The partnership intends to facilitate cross-fertilisation of ideas across industry, as well as dialogue with key stakeholders, commiting themselves to the development and publication of the Action Plan by the first quarter of 2006.
"A whole new market is opening up to produce alternatives to animal testing through the use of biotechnology," said Johan Vanhemelrijck, Secretary General of EuropaBio, which represents the biotechnology industry.
Vanhemelrijck added that it would be essential that the development of the basic research carried out by academia and industry was effectively supported and that a fast track approval system be put in place for these products.
According to recent statistics, 10.7 million animals are used annually for tests in the EU. More than 50 per cent are used in research, human medicine, dentistry and fundamental biological studies (covered by the current legislation).
Sixteen per cent are used in production and quality control of products and devices in human and veterinary medicine and dentistry and 10 per cent for toxicology and other safety evaluation.