Eying a greener pharma
We have been hearing about the concept of green chemistry and its 12 principles for quite a long time. But, seldom do we talk about the application of these principles and the wonderful concept in different industries. The pharmaceutical industry is cleaning up its act while improving its bottom line through green initiatives. Let’s have a small ride to the valleys of green pharma to experience the pharma industries’ green initiatives.
There is a lot of pressure evolving around the pharma industry worldwide as their block-buster drugs patent expires, lack of candidates to replace them, and especially the cost of discovering and developing drugs also increase. But green chemistry offers significant cost advantages and hence is a part of the solution to these problems. How ‘going green’ will reduce the cost? The savings come about because efficient syntheses that avoid exotic reagents, minimise energy use and replace organic solvents with water are invariably cheaper to perform.
But, how many are implementing these principles? The numbers are growing, but still need more participation.
The industry reports are actually a bit scary as it highlights the impact of pharmaceuticals on the environment. There is an immediate requirement of an action plan to be set up so as to increase understanding and improve risk management. The need for a greener solution is much more important when we see the steady growth of the pharma market worldwide.
Both human and veterinary medicines have the potential to harm environment. But how? The whole lot of toxic elements contained in these medicines will be coming through waste waters. Can we ever control the production of these medicines? No I guess. How can we control the production of medicines when population, and thereby health problems, is on a high. The more the number of people, the more the medicines – of different varieties, flavours, colours, complications, after-effects… where are we heading to? Green Chemistry and its wonderful concept of E-factor come to our rescue at this point. Why don’t we discuss that in another post as I am already too much “DRUGGED”?
