TY - JOUR

T1 - Assessments of life cycle and biodegradation properties uncovered distinct profiles of pharmaceutical excipients guiding selection for drug formulations

AU - Bading, Mila

AU - Griffing, Evan

AU - Olsson, Oliver

AU - Harris, Jake

AU - Scher, Jochen

AU - Sakurai, Atsushi

AU - Overcash, Michael

AU - Kümmerer, Klaus

N1 - Publisher Copyright: This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry, 2025

PY - 2025/12/28

Y1 - 2025/12/28

N2 - Urgent sustainability efforts are needed, particularly in resource-intensive industries such as the pharmaceutical sector. Pharmaceuticals (“drugs”) are made up of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and excipients. Excipients are essential components in drug formulations. They play a significant role for the applicability of drugs. In recent years the environmental impact of APIs received much attention. In contrast, the environmental impacts of excipients most often are not considered. Here, we systematically evaluate the environmental impacts of 38 pharmaceutical excipients through cradle-to-gate life cycle assessments (LCAs) and environmental biodegradability analysis. This integrated approach provides environmental scores for excipients. Our findings identify critical environmental hotspots, particularly in excipient application fields such as binders. This calls for greener, more sustainable alternative excipients. As a key outcome, the “Excipient Selection Guide” is introduced based on a database which provides data for relative ranking to environmental issues. It will enable the pharmaceutical industry to determine whether new or existing alternatives truly represent a more sustainable choice. The data and the method can be used to design novel, greener, and more sustainable excipients of the future (“Benign by Design”). While focused on the application for pharmaceuticals, the guide's principles and data are applicable to other sectors, including food, chemistry, cosmetics, and personal care, supporting sustainability across industries where the same compounds are used.

AB - Urgent sustainability efforts are needed, particularly in resource-intensive industries such as the pharmaceutical sector. Pharmaceuticals (“drugs”) are made up of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and excipients. Excipients are essential components in drug formulations. They play a significant role for the applicability of drugs. In recent years the environmental impact of APIs received much attention. In contrast, the environmental impacts of excipients most often are not considered. Here, we systematically evaluate the environmental impacts of 38 pharmaceutical excipients through cradle-to-gate life cycle assessments (LCAs) and environmental biodegradability analysis. This integrated approach provides environmental scores for excipients. Our findings identify critical environmental hotspots, particularly in excipient application fields such as binders. This calls for greener, more sustainable alternative excipients. As a key outcome, the “Excipient Selection Guide” is introduced based on a database which provides data for relative ranking to environmental issues. It will enable the pharmaceutical industry to determine whether new or existing alternatives truly represent a more sustainable choice. The data and the method can be used to design novel, greener, and more sustainable excipients of the future (“Benign by Design”). While focused on the application for pharmaceuticals, the guide's principles and data are applicable to other sectors, including food, chemistry, cosmetics, and personal care, supporting sustainability across industries where the same compounds are used.

KW - Environmental planning

KW - Chemistry

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=105024758208&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1039/d5gc02518d

DO - 10.1039/d5gc02518d

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:105024758208

VL - 27

SP - 15568

EP - 15581

JO - Green Chemistry

JF - Green Chemistry

SN - 1463-9262

IS - 48

ER -