What happens in the laboratory impacts the real world? Keeping a laboratory up to compliance is an important factor in keeping researchers, staff, and the general public outside the laboratory walls safe. That’s where GLP comes in. GLP stands for Good Laboratory Practice and it is a system of quality management that is specific to the environment in and around a scientific laboratory.

GLP is an industry-wide system of documentation methods which help regularity agencies to view data which will allow them to make a clear safety risk analysis for specific chemicals, compounds, and synthetic mixtures used as additives or as part of a finished manufactured good.

What is GLP?
GLP is a series of best practices and principles which create a frame under which a laboratory can plan, implement, and record studies and research. The data, when submitted to regularity agencies tasked with monitoring adherence to guidelines and laws, has clear reporting which gives an honest reflection for the sake of risk and safety grading and assessments. GLP primarily revolves around factors such as organizational processes, operating procedures, test systems, and the enforcement of proper documenting and storage.

What GLP Isn’t
GLP is not a safety checklist for a laboratory. It is also not a guideline for managing a staff, building a business model, or for how to interpret research. Rather, is it series of industry-wide agreed upon guidelines and best practices which foster quality, safety, and efficiency. GLP does not regulate methods used in a laboratory or management practices. It focuses primary on data accruement and not with day-to-day laboratory conditions of health and safety such as laboratory gear and clothing.

Enforcement of GLP
There are several international and regional agencies which regulate compliance of GLP inside chemical laboratories. GLP is primarily cited when enforcement agencies are conducting risk assessments of various chemicals and chemical compounds. Aside from pressure from regulatory agencies, GLP is a useful way for laboratory managers to integrate policies which foster caution, accountability, and integrity of the finished product within the laboratory environment.

Failure to comply with GLP can have multiple negative consequences for a laboratory. From fines to shut downs to negative public awareness, laboratories which shirk off or defy GLP stand to lose both industry respect and capital. It is important for laboratory management to keep abreast of updates and tweaks to GLP in order to be informed of industry-wide changes and keep on top of preserving their compliance rating.

Moving Forward with GLP
GLP encourages a laboratory environment that operates on principles of transparency and integrity. Each day, laboratories around the world lead the charge in creating breakthroughs in research, development, and testing. The ideas brought to fruition inside a laboratory environment hold the capacity to better the lives of countless people, bring forth new inventions, and help new industries to spring up.

For this reason, it is important that staff and management inside each and every laboratory in commission be well-versed with GLP. GLP promotes integrity and honesty from start to finish inside a laboratory testing or production environment.