Recipient organisationCentre for Process Innovation Limited
Funding£3.2M
PeriodNov 2024 — Oct 2030
In plain English
AI plain-English summary
Pharmaceutical manufacturing currently generates far more waste and uses far more energy than necessary, with sustainability assessments applied only after processes are already locked in. PharmEco aims to change that by embedding environmental considerations from the earliest design stages through to disposal. The project brings together drug manufacturers, technology providers, and regulators to develop continuous manufacturing platforms for small molecules, peptides, proteins, and RNA. These processes use less solvent, produce less waste, and can be scaled more efficiently than traditional batch methods. A modular digital tool will assess sustainability across safety, environmental, legal, economic, and throughput criteria, allowing companies to compare options before committing to a production route. If successful, the project could shift pharmaceutical manufacturing from a linear, waste-heavy model to a circular one. The most visible impact would be on the supply chain: cheaper, faster production of medicines with a smaller environmental footprint. Less visible but equally important, the project aims to create standardised life-cycle assessment methods that regulators can adopt, making sustainability a routine part of drug approval rather than an afterthought.
View original technical description
PHARMECO is supported by the Innovative Health Initiative Joint Undertaking (IHI JU). The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme and COCIR, EFPIA, Europa Bío, MedTech Europe, and Vaccines Europe. The project's overall objective is to revolutionize pharmaceutical manufacturing towards sustainability by integrating environmentally friendly technologies/processes and harmonized sustainability assessments methods into healthcare industry practices. This encompasses early design phase, operation, and eventual use and disposal. The project's first objective is to enhance the early-stage development of pharmaceutical products by implementing Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD)-driven process-intensified platforms (e.g. continuous manufacturing). This involves designing sustainable processes based on so-called SELECT (Safety, Environment, Legal, Economy, Control and Throughput) criteria and setting up eco-friendly systems for producing small molecules, peptides, oligo-nucleotides, proteins and ribonucleic acid (RNA) with advanced control measures. Next, PHARMECO aims to scale up and demonstrate environmentally friendly processes for industrial manufacturing and decontamination, which includes creating infrastructure for studying key unit operations with sustainable technology and for SSbD-driven process intensified manufacture at a scale sufficient for clinical testing and a manufacturing process that is easily transferred to a Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) environment. PHARMECO also aims to steer the development of (bio)manufacturing processes towards sustainable production through digital decision-making tools. This involves creating a modular digital tool for assessing sustainability from multiple perspectives, evaluating practices. Finally, the project seeks to establish a standardized approach for assessing the environmental sustainability of pharmaceuticals, which involves collaboration with various stakeholders to create scientifically robust guidelines, applying consistent Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodologies, and facilitate regulatory adoption of standardized LCA practices. By integrating sustainability considerations into every phase of manufacturing, PHARMECO will positively revolutionize pharmaceutical industry.
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