ACS GCI Pharmaceutical Roundtable

ACS GCI Pharmaceutical Roundtable—Catalyzing green chemistry & engineering in the global pharmaceutical industry.

Supply Chain

The Supply Chain Team focuses on increasing awareness of supply chain challenges with green and sustainable science across industry and academia.

Team Leads

 

Feng Peng
Feng Peng
Merck

Team Members

Phillipa Payne, Juan Colberg, Neil Langille, Rinus Broxterman, Claus Jessen, Stefan Koenig, Qiang Yang, Alain Henry, David Constable, Isamir Martinez, Joshua Bolger, Sudhir Nambiar, Greg Whiteker, Steve Critchley, Mark Verbruggem, Anne-Laure Demarcy, Luc Dasnois, Kevin Ortmans, Leon Zhang

Goal

Increase awareness of supply chain challenges with green and sustainable science across industry and academia

Team Folder

DMS: Supply Chain

Team Status

Updated: April 2020

Achievements

  • Kick-off meeting March 4th 2020
  • General introductions and company roles
  • Problem statement: We all buy intermediates from companies but don’t pay attention on how they were made
  • Potential initiatives discussed:
  • Publication of rxn/transformations of interests
  • Publication of key intermediates produced at large volume
  • Incentivize new technology/innovative new methods development
  • Redefine best chemistry for 2020 with GSS/innovation mindset
  • Get academia involved solving classical environmentally harmful reactions

Challenges

  • Not all companies are aligned on the importance of early supply chain issues and risk to in-line product commercial manufacturing
  • Obtaining ‘real’ data on chemistry routes, procedures, waste metrics, toxicity and safety metrics on high volume intermediates preparation will be difficult
  • Obtaining examples from member companies challenging (IP, not aware)
  • Green chemistry = lower cost not fully appreciated by many CMDO’s and some pharma companies
  • Academia largely unaware of gaps in green technology/methods
  • Similar effort tried 8-10 yrs ago – no real change
  • Need to incentivize GSS at global suppliers

Activity Snapshot

  • Gather ideas on how to raise awareness of early supply chain
  • Gather data from member companies on key reactions or intermediates that are produced in China/India that are highly waste producing, use toxic reagents, potentially unsafe conditions, result in environmental burden
  • Mine data on largest volume marketed drugs and identify key early intermediates and associated chemistry to make them

Upcoming Projects

  • Team members provide comments, ideas, suggestions on path forward
  • Meet to discuss ideas (May 20th)
  • LOS to publish an opinion piece or key GC developments needed in early supply chain chemistry based on published data, examples from Pharma, Agro, Dyes, Perfumes, chemistry types. What data do we need? How do we get it?