Pharma labs
The pharma industry is currently responsible for over 4% of global carbon emissions, and is on track to grow in the coming years. The UK Government has committed in legislation to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, but achieving this goal could hinge on whether or not the industry finds a way to go green.
UK life sciences flourishing
The UK life sciences sector employs over 280,000 people, and according to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, the industry makes £94bn for the UK each year[1]. Consequently, although Biosynth is an international company with headquarters in Switzerland, we have expanded our UK operation significantly in 2023 to over 150 employees.
Transparent communications
The way internal communication at manufacturing plants is structured is the most controllable factor contributing to plant efficiency. As many as 86% of employees and executives say that mishaps in communication are a leading cause of workplace failure, indicates a survey conducted by a development company Fierce[1]. Posing risk when inadequate, but producing major benefits when done right, communication remains a centrepiece of healthy operations across most industries.
Pharma fortunes
The CPHI Pharma Index – a collateralised metric of all small molecule categories – reported its second highest ever total, just 2.5% down on the 2022 all-time high. This result highlights the medium-term trajectory of the industry and the underlying strength of market fundamentals. The Index was released in full at CPHI Barcelona in October 2023.
Medicines from waste
Reducing environmental impact and decreasing costs are powerful incentives for innovators to focus on, turning potentially hazardous chemical waste into something useful. Increasingly, that also includes looking to industrial waste for chemicals that may be useful to the pharmaceutical industry.
Reducing paint waste
The road to Net Zero is a long and winding one for industry, requiring many long-term changes and significant shifts in everything from more green energy production to zero-emission vehicles, and from more efficient manufacturing to reformulating products using more environmentally friendly raw materials.
Net zero workforce
The perception that the chemical industry is not central to achieving net zero targets will affect companies’ ability to recruit skilled staff, according to the Cogent Skills report: A greenprint on skills for the low carbon industries. The extent of the challenge is shown by the 48% drop in new apprenticeships since 2015-16[1].
Gas revival
A decade ago, projects to gasify ‘bio’ feedstocks to fuels and chemicals were sprouting across the US and Europe. A 2017 study by the UK Department of Transport[1] projected global production of 300m L of fuels/year in 2023, and four times that by 2030. Actual output in 2023 will likely be under 100m L.
Nobel-worthy AI?
Will AI win a chemistry Nobel prize and replace us? That’s the question posed at my plenary lecture at the fall ACS meeting in San Francisco, California, in August. It may seem rather facetious, but the fact is it’s hard to tune in to the news these days without hearing something about the impacts of AI. Frequently negative, sometimes fun – and often exaggerated.
The CO2 advantage
To achieve a net zero future, we must end our reliance on fossil resources. Yet, to move away from using fossil fuels to make plastics, we need to invest in true alternatives. We need a solid and commercially competitive alternative to fossil fuels – one that can also achieve negative emissions (a net reduction of atmospheric CO2) to stabilise global warming and secure a carbon neutral future.