Alerts

The Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (the department) has updated the import conditions for Purified laboratory material, laboratory reagents, toxins and venoms.

The Laboratory materials case has been changed to exclude the importation of antibodies and antigens using the ‘Purified laboratory material, laboratory reagents, toxins and venoms’ import conditions. The intent of these conditions was always only to allow the importation of low risk purified laboratory materials and reagents, including proteins.

Many antigens and antibodies can present a higher biosecurity risk compared with other proteins due to the increased likelihood of contamination with material of biosecurity concern from source materials used in their production.

This change will be applied to existing and new import permits.

If you are a permit holder who will be affected by this change, the department will contact you to notify you that your permit will be varied to reflect this change and explain what this means.

In addition, other changes have been made that will only apply to new permits to improve clarity of conditions and increase the department’s assurance that conditions are being met.

To view the new set of conditions that will be applied to all new permits, please navigate to the Purified laboratory material, laboratory reagents, toxins and venoms pathway.

Who does this alert affect:
Departmental staff and importers of purified laboratory material, laboratory regents, toxins and venoms that are in quantities of no greater than 20ml or 20g for each individually packaged unit for in vitro and/or in vivo in laboratory organisms end uses, including the following:

• Albumins
• Antibiotics
• Co-factors
• Enzymes
• Enzyme inhibitors
• Growth factors
• Hormones
• Laboratory material derived from a fermentation process
• Lipids
• Proteins (excluding prions)
• Purified toxins
• Purified venoms

Further information:
Please contact the Laboratory and Human Tissues Program by emailing imports@agriculture.gov.au or call 1800 900 090 (prompt 1, prompt 1).