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A call for industry to embrace green biopharma

Nature Biotechnology volume 34, pages 234–235 (2016)Cite this article

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To the Editor:

Awareness and understanding about environmental risks have grown considerably in recent years, resulting in public policies and private sector efforts to encourage further development of environmentally sustainable business practices. For companies, the business benefits of environmentally conscious decision-making include reducing regulatory risks and operational costs, better management of scarce resources, and improving corporate reputation1. Pharmaceutical companies embarked on this journey over a decade ago with the incorporation of 'Green Chemistry and Engineering Principles' into small-molecule drug development and production through the American Chemical Society (ACS; Washington, DC, USA) Green Chemistry Institute Pharmaceutical Roundtable (GCIPR)2,3. As large-molecule drugs (biologics or biopharmaceuticals) have grown in importance, so too has the need to employ cost-efficient, environmentally sustainable production methods for these drugs. Here we argue for the need to adapt the Green Chemistry and Engineering Principles to biologics and to develop appropriate environmental metrics as a means to accelerate the greening of the biopharmaceutical sector. We hope that the examples provided in this article will encourage other companies to further develop and implement the tenets of what we term 'green biopharma'.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to S. Chan, J.E. Corn, P. Duffy, D. Glover, E. Helgason, J. Jerkins, J. Kawamoto, A.R. Keba, R. Kloberdanz, T.M. Larson, E. Mahajan, B. Shum, J. Strauss, S. Stawicki and S. Vutukuru for their contributions to the Green BioPharma program at Genentech and this publication. We would especially like to acknowledge the late S. Akella for her contribution to the media bag reuse project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. and Safety Department, Environmental, Health, Genentech, Inc., South San Francisco, California, USA

    Kristi L Budzinski

  2. Research and Early Development (gRED), Genentech, Inc., South San Francisco, California, USA

    Stefan G Koenig

  3. Pharma Technical Development Operations, Genentech, Inc., South San Francisco, California, USA

    Deborah A O'Connor

  4. Process and Project Engineering, Production Technology, Genentech, Inc., South San Francisco, California, USA

    Tse-Sung Wu

Authors
  1. Kristi L Budzinski
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  2. Stefan G Koenig
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  3. Deborah A O'Connor
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  4. Tse-Sung Wu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kristi L Budzinski.

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The authors are employees of Genentech.

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Budzinski, K., Koenig, S., O'Connor, D. et al. A call for industry to embrace green biopharma. Nat Biotechnol 34, 234–235 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.3493

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