Can biotechnology lead the way toward a sustainable pharmaceutical industry? – ScienceDirect.com

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copbio.2024.103100 Get rights and content

Highlights

•
The pharmaceutical industry is growing rapidly, with a CAGR of 2.4%.
•
Environmental impacts of only around 0.2% of pharmaceuticals have been reported.
•
mAb products feature high market volume and CC impact (6600–210 000 kgCO₂eq/kg).
•
Biotechnology advances pharmaceuticals’ economic, environmental, and social sustainability.
•
Quantitative impact assessments can guide the sustainability transition.

The impact-intensive and rapidly growing pharmaceutical industry must ensure its sustainability. This study reveals that environmental sustainability assessments have been conducted for only around 0.2% of pharmaceuticals, environmental impacts have significant variations among the assessed products, and different impact categories have not been consistently studied. Highly varied impacts require assessing more products to understand the industry’s sustainability status. Reporting all impact categories will be crucial, especially when comparing production technologies. Biological production of (semi)synthetic pharmaceuticals could reduce their environmental costs, though the high impacts of biologically produced monoclonal antibodies should also be optimized. Considering the sustainability potential of biopharmaceuticals from economic, environmental, and social perspectives, collaboratively guiding their immense market growth would lead to the industry’s sustainability transition.

Graphical Abstract

Data Availability

Data will be made available on request.

Cited by (0)

^☆: Michael K Jensen had no involvement in the peer review of the article and has no access to information regarding its peer review. Full responsibility for the editorial process of this article was delegated to Christoph Wittmann.