Green pharmacy: Sustainable practices in phamascince and basomedial

Daniel Thompson

doi:10.35841/aabps-15.111.299

Commentary - Asian Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences (2025) Volume 15, Issue 11

Green pharmacy: Sustainable practices in phamascince and basomedial

Rebekah Adams^*

Department of Pharmacokinetics, University of Toronto, Canada

*Corresponding Author:: Rebekah Adams
Department of Pharmacokinetics
University of Toronto, Canada
E-mail: rebekah.adams@utoronto.ca

Received: 01-May -2025, Manuscript No. AABPS-25 -166495; Editor assigned: 03-May-2025, Pre QC No. AABPS-25-166495(PQ); Reviewed: 17-May-2025, QC No.AABPS-24-166495; Revised: 21-May-2025, Manuscript No. AABPS-25-166495(R); Published: 28-May-2025, DOI: 10.35841/aabps-15.111.299

Citation: Adams R. Green pharmacy: Sustainable practices in phamascince and basomedial. Asian J Biomed Pharm Sci. 2025;15(111):299

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Introduction

Green Pharmacy—also referred to as ecopharmacy—addresses the environmental impact of drug discovery, production, distribution, and disposal. In phamas scine and biomedile, traditional processes often rely on hazardous reagents, produce significant waste, and contribute to pharmaceutical contaminants in water systems. Green pharmacy aims to minimize these effects by integrating sustainable chemistry principles, optimizing resource use, and ensuring safe end-of-life management. As healthcare systems strive for net-zero targets, adopting eco-friendly methodologies in pharmaceutical research and manufacturing becomes essential to safeguard both human health and ecological integrity.

Continuous flow reactors reduce batch volumes, improve heat and mass transfer, and enable on-demand synthesis of intermediates. By maintaining precise reaction conditions, flow systems achieve higher yields with less by-product formation. Combining multiple synthetic steps into a single sequence without isolating intermediates lowers solvent usage and decreases energy consumption. For instance, a sequential amide coupling followed by cyclization can proceed in one pot, eliminating intermediate workups.

Replacing chlorinated or aromatic solvents with bioethanol, ethyl lactate, or propylene carbonate reduces toxicity and improves biodegradability. These alternatives often derive from renewable feedstocks, aligning with circular-economy goals. Employing heterogeneous catalysts (e.g., palladium on carbon, zeolites) or biocatalysts (enzymes) minimizes waste, lowers reaction temperatures, and enhances selectivity. Enzymatic transaminations convert ketones to chiral amines under mild aqueous conditions, offering significant green advantages.

Rapid heating reduces reaction times from hours to minutes, cutting overall energy usage. Many heterocycle formations and coupling reactions under microwave conditions achieve high conversion rates with minimal side reactions Implementing distillation or membrane purification within production facilities allows recovery of solvents—such as isopropanol and acetone—for multiple cycles, reducing demand for fresh solvent and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. Selecting excipients derived from natural polymers (e.g., cellulose derivatives, starch) or biodegradable lipids ensures that unused or expired dosage forms degrade without releasing microplastics or persistent micropollutants. Formulations that achieve target release profiles with fewer inactive ingredients reduce the environmental burden associated with manufacturing and disposal.

Establishing community take-back initiatives collects expired or unused medications, preventing them from entering waterways. Collected drugs are responsibly incinerated or, where feasible, chemically deactivated to prevent environmental contamination. Digital platforms inform patients of local drop-off locations and provide guidelines for safe handling of pharmaceutical waste, increasing public participation and compliance.

Synthetic routes designed with high atom economy minimize the generation of unwanted side products. For instance, direct oxidative coupling to form API scaffolds bypasses multiple functional group manipulations, decreasing overall waste. Using transaminases, ketoreductases, or lyases to create chiral centers in APIs under ambient conditions replaces conventional chiral catalysts requiring metal-based complexes and harsh reaction media. A biocatalytic process for (S)-propranolol precursor synthesis demonstrates >95% enantiomeric excess in water, exemplifying green innovation.

Incorporating green metrics such as E-factor (mass of waste per mass of product) and process mass intensity (PMI) during process development quantifies environmental performance. Continuous monitoring guides incremental improvements, aiming for E-factors below 5 for small-molecule drugs. Pharmaceutical plants deploying solar panels or biomass boilers to power key reaction units reduce dependence on fossil fuels. A Canadian API facility recently reported a 30% reduction in CO2 emissions after integrating geothermal heating for solvent recovery.

Techniques like solid-phase microextraction (SPME) minimize or eliminate solvent usage in sample analysis. In pharmacokinetic studies, coupling SPME to LC-MS/MS enables accurate drug quantification in plasma using microliter volumes of organic modifiers. Substituting acetonitrile with ethanol-water mobile phases and using superficially porous columns lower solvent consumption and reduce toxic solvent disposal. A validated UHPLC method for quantifying antihypertensive drugs achieved comparable sensitivity using 50% ethanol mobile phases. Evaluating an API’s cradle-to-gate environmental impact—including raw material sourcing, energy consumption, and waste generation—identifies hotspots for improvement. An LCA of statin production revealed that switching to recovered chiral precursors reduced carbon footprint by 25% Digital LCA platforms assist chemists and engineers in comparing alternative synthetic routes early in development, balancing green objectives with cost and scalability.

By minimizing hazardous waste and curbing pharmaceutical contaminants, green pharmacy preserves aquatic ecosystems and reduces ecological toxicity. Efficient processes often lower reagent consumption and waste disposal fees, translating into long-term operational savings. Continuous flow reactors, for example, decrease footprint and utilities cost compared to traditional batch setups. Regulatory agencies increasingly encourage sustainable practices. Demonstrating robust green credentials can enhance corporate reputation and streamline regulatory reviews, given growing scrutiny of environmental compliance.

Transitioning to greener processes—such as installing flow reactors or enlisting biocatalysis platforms—requires capital expenditure and specialized training. Smaller research labs or generic manufacturers may face budget constraints. For some APIs, greener routes may initially yield lower performance metrics (e.g., lower throughput or slightly reduced purity). Identifying optimal trade-offs between sustainability and product quality demands careful evaluation. Enzyme-based steps often work well at bench scale but can pose challenges in large-scale reactors, particularly regarding enzyme stability, cofactor regeneration, and upstream/downstream integration. Protein engineering and directed evolution can yield tailor-made biocatalysts with enhanced stability in nonstandard media (e.g., deep eutectic solvents), enabling broader reaction scopes and simplified downstream purification. Solvents that alter polarity or viscosity in response to simple triggers (temperature, pH) facilitate easy separation of products and solvent reuse, further reducing environmental impact.

Machine learning algorithms trained on historical reaction data predict optimal conditions that maximize yield while minimizing reagents and by-products. Chemists can input target structures to receive eco-metric rankings of potential synthetic routes. Integrating internet-of-things (IoT) sensors on manufacturing lines tracks VOC emissions, solvent recoveries, and energy consumption in real time. Dashboard analytics help operators make instantaneous adjustments to maintain green compliance. Voluntary certification marks—analogous to LEED in construction—could indicate that a drug’s entire lifecycle meets defined environmental benchmarks, influencing procurement decisions by healthcare organizations.

Agencies such as Health Canada and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) are beginning to incorporate environmental impact assessments in drug approval dossiers. Clear guidelines on acceptable E-factors or solvent inventories will drive consistent adoption across the industry. Academic programs integrating green chemistry principles into pharmacology, medicinal chemistry, and pharmaceutical engineering equip future scientists with sustainability mindsets from the outset. Collaborative consortia—mimicking initiatives like the ACS Green Chemistry Institute—pool resources to develop shared technologies, such as pilot-scale biocatalytic platforms or centralized solvent recycling facilities, lowering barriers to entry [9, 10].

Conclusion

Green Pharmacy represents a transformative shift in phamas scine and biomedile, embedding sustainability at every stage of the drug development lifecycle. By adopting waste-minimization strategies, greener reagents, energy-efficient processes, and comprehensive life cycle assessments, the pharmaceutical industry can significantly reduce its ecological footprint without compromising patient safety or therapeutic efficacy. While challenges persist—particularly regarding initial investments and scalability—ongoing innovations in catalysis, solvent technology, and digital decision support are poised to overcome these hurdles. As regulatory pressures and societal expectations mount, integrating green pharmacy principles will become not only ethically imperative but also commercially advantageous. Through concerted efforts across academia, industry, and government, the vision of a truly sustainable pharmaceutical ecosystem can be realized—preserving both human health and the environment for generations to come.