We are thrilled to announce the official launch of the ambitious PHARMECO project, co-funded by the Innovative Health Initiative Joint Undertaking (IHI JU). This groundbreaking initiative aims to transform pharmaceutical industry to more sustainable pharmaceutical manufacturing practices by integrating environmentally-friendlier technologies, improved processes and standardized sustainability assessment methods.
PHARMECO will address the production of small molecules, tides, biologics, and medical devices & technologies, with a key focus on:
- Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD) platforms for early-stage pharmaceutical development
- Green processes for industrial-scale manufacturing and decontamination
- Advanced digital tools for sustainability assessment and decision-making
CESPE is excited to lead this alliance of 31 esteemed international partners, together with Sanofi as industry project lead:
CESPE’s focus on sustainable innovation in drug manufacturing positions it as the ideal coordinator for this groundbreaking six-year project, guiding partners toward ambitious sustainability goals.
Seven Ghent University research groups, all CESPE members, will be actively involved across all PHARMECO workstreams:
The Sustainable Systems Engineering group (STEN) (Prof. Jo Dewulf, Lieselot Boone) will lead the workstream on sustainable design and evaluation frameworks for pharmaceuticals, collaborating closely with Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi. Supported by Ghent University’s Epidemiology of Chronic Diseases unit (Prof. Delphine De Smedt), the Biovism Lab (Prof. Jan Verwaeren), the Bionamix Lab (Prof. Paul Van Liedekerke), and several international partners, STEN will lead environmental impact assessments for innovative manufacturing technologies , the set-up of holistic sustainability evaluations, and development of models and digital tools for predictive sustainability, with industry input to enhance scalability and precision.
The Synthesis, Bioresources, and Bio-organic Chemistry group (SynBioC) (Prof. Chris Stevens) will contribute to the workstream on sustainable chemical synthesis. SynBioC’s activities will focus on creating intermediates from bio-renewable sources, using non-precious metal catalysts, utilizing high-throughput experimentation tools, which will contribute to the project’s ambition to implement cleaner, more economical chemical synthesis processes in industry practice.
The Pharmaceutical Engineering Research Group (Prof. Ashish Kumar) and the Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Process Analytical Technology (Prof. Thomas De Beer) will both contribute to the workstream focused on intensification of biomanufacturing processes. Their efforts will centre on implementing advanced model-based strategies for process control and optimizing production processes. These activities will support the workstream’s objective to incorporate scalable, cleaner, and resource-efficient biomanufacturing methods, practices, and unit operations into industry standards.
Stay tuned for updates as we work on adopting more sustainable practices in pharmaceutical manufacturing!
- Contact information: sarah.costers@ugent.be
- Website www.pharmeco.eu (will go live as from 16/12/2024)
This project is supported by the Innovative Health Initiative Joint Undertaking (IHI JU) and its members under grant agreement No 101165889.