There is currently no international standard for practices in containment laboratories, hence DNV initiated a project in 2005 to address this issue, and discovered there was great interest from operators all over the world for such a standard. The development of a standard was therefore initiated by DNV, together with the European and American Biosafety Associations, and the WHO.

The standard is being developed using the CEN Workshop Agreement process, which is an internationally recognised consensus-based standards-development approach. The peer-designed Standard will complement the current WHO guidelines and enhance existing national regulations. The intention is that it will promote good practice in the containment laboratories, and provide organisations with a tool for internal audit and third-party certification of facilities and management systems. This will therefore assure regulators, funding bodies and the community that adequate measures are in place to responsibly manage biorisk.