According to Narendar Yeshwanth, PhD, vp for R&D and Innovation at Saint-Gobain Life Sciences, the BioPhorum industry collaboration is working on a plan to make the biopharmaceutical business more sustainable. Yeshwanth aspires for a mid-2024 release date.
Standardizing how sustainability is evaluated across the sector is the key difficulty for the companies working on the roadmap, says Yeshwanth. He tells GEN that the first item of business is to make sure that everyone understands what sustainability means. The key is aligning these varied methodologies that each organization utilizes, which might range from life cycle analysis to a carbon footprint approach.
Industry groups within BioPhorum are examining ways to increase the effectiveness of water use in the production of biopharmaceuticals and how to quantify the amount of plastic waste. They are also experimenting with new ways to design devices that can be disassembled after use for recycling and how to cleanse plastics that have been contaminated by biologics before disposal.