Implementing Sustainability Across the Drug Delivery Product Value Chain
Duncan Paterson, CEng, MBA, Senior Director, Device Development, AstraZeneca, discusses how pharmaceutical companies can embed environmental sustainability practices in business processes, the challenges to achieving sustainability goals and new technologies that can lower costs and environmental footprint.
Tell us about the sustainability work you are leading.
I am part of the parenteral device development group at AstraZeneca, but my sustainability roles extend beyond this group. Within AstraZeneca, I lead or co-lead sustainability committees and working groups that are hubs for cross functional collaboration aimed at reducing environmental impact, primarily in product development. I also co-lead the Sustainability sub-team within the Subcutaneous Consortium, an industry working group with representatives from a broad range of pharmaceutical license holders and suppliers. Earlier this year, we presented the results of a benchmarking survey about adoption of sustainability practices across the industry at industry conferences.
Can you tell us more about the survey that the Subcutaneous Consortium conducted?
The Subcutaneous Consortium conducted a survey involving 12 member companies to assess sustainability practices in drug delivery development. Respondents, primarily from device and packaging development functions, along with sustainability specialists, provided valuable insights. The findings highlight that bold corporate sustainability ambitions are laying a foundation for progress. However, they also reveal opportunities to align these goals with project-level priorities and investments in environmental sustainability. Key focus areas include reusable and multi-dose devices, bio-based plastics, life-cycle assessments, and eco-design principles, underlining the potential for sustainable innovation in our industry. The survey findings underscore the importance of translating organizational goals and ambitions into actionable practices and operational impacts.
How do you define sustainability?
Most pharmaceutical companies now define sustainability quite broadly, including not only environmental stewardship, but also equitable access to healthcare, as well as ethical business practices. My focus on the environmental impact of the products we produce spans the entire product value chain: from development, commercialization, manufacturing, and supply, to use and disposal/recovery. The work within product sustainability is broad and interconnected, making it very interesting as well as presenting numerous challenges. Success depends heavily on industry collaboration and stakeholders across the value chain embedding sustainability practices into their core business processes.
"Embedding sustainability from the lab to the patient is critical to achieving the environmental goals that many companies have set themselves, including achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions."
How can we as an industry embed environmental sustainability practices into our business-as-usual processes?
Embedding sustainability from the lab to the patient is critical to achieving the environmental goals that many companies have set themselves, including achieving net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Within product sustainability, there are two areas that are key to driving positive impact.
First, environmental impact needs to become part of the product business case, with meaningful sustainability targets included in the target product profile which development and manufacturing teams must deliver on. Setting high-level requirements helps ensure environmental impacts are considered during each stage of the decision-making process, enabling opportunities, challenges or conflicts to be identified early on in the development process.
Secondly, sustainability must become “everyone’s business,” much like quality is today. This means ensuring everyone has a foundational understanding of environmental practices, tools, metrics, etc, embedding them not only into our procedures and practices, but also into broader business processes and culture. I believe we need to reach a tipping point where sustainability is universally adopted across all functions and is no longer just the domain of a handful of environmental specialists or dependent on a few personally committed “sustainability champions.”
What are ways to reduce the impact of drug delivery products throughout the value chain through to use and disposal?
Speaking from the perspective of someone working at a global biopharmaceutical company, I will highlight a few of the areas that I am focused on:
One way to reduce the impact of drug delivery products is transitioning from single-use devices towards reusable and multi-dose devices to minimize the amount of material and energy consumed per dose. There are several challenges to overcome to make this change. For example, we need to rethink some of our assumptions about usability and address perceived use-related risks through device and packaging designs that incorporate both usability and reusability from the very start.
Reducing the amount of airfreight and refrigerated (or frozen) transportation and storage in the supply chain represents a big opportunity to reduce the environmental footprint of medicines, particularly for biologic products. This can come about through thoughtful and strategic site selection, switching from airfreight to sea-freight or through optimized carton and shipper designs that maximize pallet density.
Take-back programs to recover used devices for recycling (and potentially even refurbishment) can further reduce environmental impacts. While early attempts at such initiatives faced challenges, their resurgence, driven by a more collaborative and industry-wide approach, is encouraging. By addressing logistical complexities and achieving the necessary scale and participation rates, these programs have the potential to substantially reduce the environmental footprint of device-based products such as weight management biologics.
"We need to rethink some of our assumptions about usability and address perceived use-related risks through device and packaging designs that incorporate both usability and reusability from the very start."
What are some of the challenges we need to address to meaningfully achieve sustainability goals?
A major challenge, which I think is widely recognized, is the lack of truly standardized processes and tools to measure environmental impacts up and down the value chain and across the industry. We can estimate GHG emissions associated with producing a product, but this is more complicated than it appears and despite international standards, there are still significant differences between how companies calculate and share GHG emissions data. Even with a narrow focus on GHG emissions, achieving industry alignment on metrics, targets and ways to improve, is challenging. When also taking into consideration environmental impacts such as water use, raw material use and pollution – to name only a few – the situation becomes even more complex.
Lifecycle Assessment (LCA) is now widely adopted and relied on across the industry. Speaking from a development perspective, I am excited to see that “lite” versions of LCA tools are emerging to help project teams calculate environmental impact data during development. These types of tools can help teams measure against targets and enable comparisons of technology options and scenarios to inform decision-making and drive improvements. In my opinion, while there is still work to be done before we get to the point where these tools and practices are broadly embedded across the industry, there is a strong collective interest among pharmaceutical companies and suppliers, and we are now making encouraging progress.
"There are many opportunities for people to engage in sustainability regardless of which area of the industry you are in, either internally within a company or externally through industry forums and collaborations."
Are there any specific projects, technologies, etc, that excite you?
I am excited by the reusable autoinjector that AstraZeneca has been developing in collaboration with Team Consulting. The design prioritizes minimizing cost and environmental impacts without compromising usability and without additional safety concerns. We consciously started with the essential design concepts, only adding features and complexity where absolutely necessary to achieve our goals. The result is a design that delivers the usability of single-use autoinjectors with a significantly lower cost and environmental footprint. Additionally, I am excited about the potential of blow-fill-seal container technologies as a potential alternative to glass vials and syringes. While there are technical challenges to address, the potential sustainability advantages are substantial.
Anything else?
It is great to see that PODD and other conferences feature sustainability and reinforce the need for collective action on this critical topic. To conclude, I would like to highlight that there are many opportunities for people to engage in sustainability regardless of which area of the industry they are in, either internally within a company or externally through industry forums and collaborations. I strongly encourage everyone to look for ways to upskill your sustainability literacy and find ways to get involved – we all have a role to play!
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