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Celebrating the link between historic figures and the buildings they lived and worked in

Historical sign commemorates Robert Warington’s life with tribute at his home

By Christiana Briddell, ACS GCI Communications Manager

The ACS GCI Pharmaceutical Roundtable kicked off its 20th anniversary celebrations with a workshop “Driving Sustainability in Pharma and Allied Industries,” hosted at the AstraZeneca campus in Macclesfield, UK on March 13.

The ACS Green Chemistry Institute Pharmaceutical Roundtable (GCIPR) kicked off its 20th anniversary celebrations with a workshop “Driving Sustainability in Pharma and Allied Industries,” hosted at the AstraZeneca campus in Macclesfield, UK on March 13. The event created a dynamic intermingling of chemists from many different pharmaceutical companies with local university students and other small businesses in the pharma supply chain. Participants gained an understanding of the tools, resources, and activities that have emerged from this 20-year collaboration to advance green chemistry, with the ACS GCIPR co-chairs Mike Kopach (Lilly) and Paul Richardson (Pfizer), and ACS GCI Assistant Director Isamir Martinez, kicking it off.

Invited speakers included Prof. Nick Turner of the University of Manchester who spoke about the frontiers of biocatalysis, and Prof. Helen Sneddon of the University of York, who provided a full overview of the Roundtable tools as useful resources for the classroom and academic research. Providing industry case studies, Steve Swallow demonstrated how AstraZeneca is employing green chemistry to further their ambitious sustainability objectives. Olivier Dapremont, SK Pharmteco, explained how his company is successfully and very efficiently recycling solvents in several key separation processes. Shane McKenna, BMS, presented the Peter Dunn Award-winning sustainable process design for an active pharmaceutical ingredient manufactured by Bristol-Myers Squibb. Other topics included an introduction to sustainability in peptides and oligonucleotides presented by Martin Kenworthy and Anna Watson (AstraZeneca), new technologies for discovery chemistry discussed by Shazia Keily (Vertex), and a review from Álvaro Enríquez Gracia (Lilly) on hazards associated with common solvent used in medicinal chemistry and the importance of appropriate solvent selection, facilitated by the ACS GCIPR Solvent Selection Tool. ACS GCI’s Sederra Ross elicited some friendly competition by leading a trivia game that tested which participants were paying the closest attention to the days’ talks. The workshop closed with a lively poster session where students presented their own research to the attendees. With a 100% satisfaction rate, it was a productive and fun day for all. The Roundtable looks forward to presenting a second full-day workshop in the fall which will be hosted at Takeda in Cambridge, MA.

The workshop took place after the two-day ACS GCIPR meeting where over 50 members participated in-person and online to discuss priorities and report on the progress of initiatives from many of the Roundtable’s focus teams. A big thanks to AstraZeneca for hosting both the meeting and the workshop in their beautiful campus, provided delicious lunches, and giving Roundtable members a tour of their batch and new flow chemistry facilities. It is aways a pleasure to get to hear first-hand how different companies approach sustainability, and we appreciated hearing the ways in which green chemistry plays an important role at AstraZeneca. The Roundtable meetings are exceptional events where companies can come together and learn from each other, and where members can contribute to the mission of the Roundtable to advance green chemistry and engineering throughout the pharma industry and allied spaces.

Mike Kopach (Lilly) and Paul Richardson (Pfizer) with ASC GCI Assistant Director Isamir Martinez in front of the AstraZeneca sign. Credit: James White Photography

 

 

Students reading the Solvent Guide at the workshop. Credit: James White Photography

 

 

ASC GCI Assistant Director Isamir Martinez with workshop participants. Credit: James White Photography

 

 

Roundtable members prepared to tour the AstraZeneca site.

 

 

ASC GCI Pharmaceutical Roundtable members at Jordell Bank radio telescope. Credit: James White Photography

 

Steve Swallow of AstraZeneca poses with ASC GCI Assistant Director Isamir Martinez in front of the ACS GCIPR 20th anniversary sign.

 

 

 

Researchers try to go beyond petroleum with biobased adhesives

Confusion, impulsive behaviors could have economic impacts, experts warn

By Adelina Voutchkova, ACS Director of Sustainable Development

This letter originally appeared in the March/April issue of the Nexus newsletter.

 

Dear colleagues, 

This issue of the Nexus is hitting your mailboxes amidst unprecedented turbulence for the scientific community. Many members of our community have been impacted by recent policy events, and we want to extend our support to all of you. Amidst this turbulence, a significant event for the green chemistry and engineering community went under the radar: last December, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released the second part of the Sustainable Chemistry Strategy Report mandated by the bipartisan Sustainable Chemistry Research and Development Act, enacted during the first Trump administration. Although the Biden OSTP site has been archived, the report can be accessed through the Green Chemistry for Sustainability platform. This 52-page document outlines a comprehensive plan for advancing sustainable chemistry in the United States and provides a “call to action” for the scientific community to fill innovation gaps and translate them into practical implementation. 

The report highlights several key areas of research with significant potential impacts, including earth-abundant metal catalysis, discovery of more sustainable chemical transformation mechanisms, and innovation and adoption of biocatalysis and synthetic biology for chemical manufacturing. Surprisingly, one area that received less attention in the report was the development of rational approaches for the design of safer commercial chemicals and assessments of chemical safety. 

Additionally, the report emphasizes leveraging data-driven approaches to advance sustainable chemistry practices. This includes utilizing advanced data analytics and AI to optimize chemical processes and predict environmental impacts. By integrating data-driven methodologies, researchers can identify more sustainable alternatives and improve the efficiency of chemical transformations. These approaches also facilitate the development of safer chemicals and materials by providing insights into their potential hazards and lifecycle impacts. 

As noted by Joel Tickner in a recent C&EN Comment, the report does not address some aspects critical to incentivizing sustainable chemistry investment, such as practical criteria to evaluate investments from this perspective and emphasis on safety as a pre-requisite for sustainability. However, it calls for development of a framework to evaluate the sustainability of products or processes through a multicriteria analysis that involves efficiency, energy, circularity, safety, social, and economic factors (Figure below). Implementing such a framework will be no small feat, requiring buy-in from researchers, agencies, industry and NGOs.

A hypothetical evaluation framework for sustainable chemistry. Source: Federal Sustainable Chemistry Strategic Plan, December 2024.

 

We encourage you to delve into the report and explore the research areas with high potential for impact. Read the full report and join us in making a difference. For more insights, you can also read the detailed coverage from C&EN’s Sara Cottle. 

 

Legislation’s sponsor claims it will prevent espionage, but there are warnings it will harm US competitiveness

By Cecilia Smith, Administrative Assistant, ACS Green Chemistry Institute

How can the agricultural industry mitigate emissions while simultaneously increasing production by nearly 50% to meet increasing worldwide demand? The global agriculture industry is tasked with this fundamental challenge to address increasing food demand arising from population growth. Incentive programs for efficient farming practices, innovations in crop protection science, biological solutions, and effective data collection—strategies implemented by agriculture companies like Nutrien and Corteva Agriscience—can help the industry maximize efficiency and make progress towards this global need.

As the worldwide population is expected to increase from a little over 8 billion in 2025 to 9.75 billion people in 2050, the USDA predicts that global agricultural production would need to increase to 14,060 trillion crop calories to feed the global population, a 47-percent increase in crop calories from 2011. The United Nations highlights this challenge in their Sustainable Development Goal #2: Zero Hunger, and projects that more than 600 million people worldwide will be facing hunger in 2030 if production proceeds at its current pace. To address this crucial worldwide goal, it’s clear that the agriculture sector must increase output and embrace innovative solutions.

Graphs showing projected population growth and projected actual and needed crop yield to meet growing demand from 2010 to 2050. Source: https://www.grida.no/resources/8183 – credit to Riccardo Pravettoni.

 

A Systems Approach: Sustainable Nitrogen Outcomes

Experts in the industry have adopted various programs and new technologies to decrease chemical use and lessen environmental impact. As nitrogen fertilizer is a primary crop nutrient used extensively in agriculture, it has become an important factor in many efficiency initiatives. One such example is an incentive program used by Nutrien, a leading global crop inputs and services company, which provides growers with financial compensation for improving their nitrogen use efficiency. The Sustainable Nitrogen Outcomes program offers compensation for growers on a per acre basis when they reduce applied nitrogen by a minimum of 5% and provide Nutrien with specific data on their crops and yields.

Sally Flis, Director of Sustainable Ag Programs at Nutrien, describes how the program encourages growers to think about fertilizer use in a more holistic way by targeting the Four R’s of nutrient management: right source, right rate, right time, and right placement of fertilizer. 

“The Four R’s are really trying to get agriculture stakeholders to think about all of the factors that impact fertilizer application, instead of focusing just on rate,” says Flis.

Graphic showing the Four R's of nutrient management: right source, right rate, right time, and right place.

From a sustainability standpoint it may seem like reducing the rate of nitrogen-based fertilizer use is the most environmentally beneficial option, but this isn’t always the case. A decrease in nitrogen fertilizer use that results in a much lower yield can lead to an overall increase in emissions for that amount of crops. Inversely, using much more nitrogen than needed to ensure a high yield of crops introduces excess nitrogen emissions. By using crop consultants who work with growers individually, Nutrien tailors its Sustainable Nitrogen Outcomes Program to meet individual farms’ needs, taking into consideration growers’ specific crop history and goals. Flis states that this process “helps growers focus on the whole system instead of thinking only about fertilizer use rate and assuming that changing just the rate will reduce emissions.” At the end of the day, the program’s aim is to increase efficiency. “Our goal is that on every acre where this program is implemented, we assist the grower to increase yield with less inputs than they previously applied.”

Taking a holistic, systemic approach to efficient farming practices also means providing meaningful and impactful incentives for individual farmers to drive widespread adoption of these practices. As with many industries, it can be challenging to convince stakeholders to change their processes, and many growers express concern about yield loss when using less fertilizer, meaning financial incentives for growers enrolled in the program are crucial. Additionally, Flis states that, “it takes time and effort from the growers to collect the right data needed for the program that then must be verified, analyzed, and reported. It’s important to have an incentive that’s meaningful to growers.”

 

Farmer Focused Solutions

Like Nutrien, Corteva Agriscience sees the importance of centering growers and farmers when developing sustainable alternatives to current agricultural practices. Corteva Agriscience, an agricultural and seed company that has won six Green Chemistry Challenge Awards, creates new fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, and seed treatments that aim to increase crop yield while minimizing environmental impact. Ashish Batra, Corteva’s Vice President of Crop Health R&D, states that, “Corteva’s innovation process really starts with the farmer focus. We ask, ‘What is the problem that they have that we can solve?’” Corteva then uses 12 sustainable innovation criteria, which align with 5 of the U.N. SDGs, to develop new technology and chemistry to solve that problem.

Like Nutrien’s Sustainable Nitrogen Outcomes Program, one of Corteva’s products aims to target nitrogen use, but through a different strategy. Utrisha™ N is a biological compound launched by Corteva which is based on the endophytic bacterium Methylobacterium symbioticum, which works with the plant to secure needed nitrogen from the atmosphere by enhancing nitrogen use efficiency. This unique biological product acts as a supplemental source of nitrogen for crops in addition to synthetic fertilizers. It provides nitrogen to the plant throughout the growing season and enhances yield for farmers without any additional synthetic nitrogen than their standard practice. In Brazil, farmers have seen roughly a 4.4 bushels per acre advantage using Utrisha™ N as a supplemental source of nitrogen in corn, and about a 2.6 bushels per acre increase in soybeans.

Potatoes treated with 200 kg N/ha vs. 200 kg N/ha + Utrisha N. The field that received Utrisha N shows improved vigor and yielded over 5% more (56.1 t/ha compared to 53.1 t/ha).

Barriers & Drivers to Change

Despite these advancements, there are a number of obstacles to widespread implementation of efficiency practices, such as a lack of cooperation between stakeholders. Flis states that when beginning to work with new growers for the Sustainable Nitrogen Outcomes program, it’s important to understand where growers are starting from to figure out the best strategy for increasing efficiency and production gains per acre. Large surveys on grower practices range from 10-20 years old, and current programs for collecting public grower data are slow, meaning the data can be out of date by the time it’s published.

“Enhancing government data collection protocols and establishing a centralized public dataset could greatly assist companies in setting accurate baselines,” says Flis. “Data accessibility should foster collaboration rather than competition.”

Additionally, implementation of new products and processes is often slow. For Corteva, developing a new crop protection chemistry takes roughly 12 years from discovery to launch of the product. For Nutrien, while they have successfully created a unique pathway for growers from initial sign-on to implementation, the current timeframes for data collection, verification, validation, and monetization present opportunities for refinement. This reflects the continuous journey towards optimizing the efficiency of these processes.

When it comes to motivating change in existing practices, performance ultimately drives change more quickly.

“At the end of the day, farmers really don't care about products themselves,” says Batra. “They care about performance. If you were to ask a farmer, ‘Will you buy a more sustainable product?’ the answer will be, ‘What does the product do for me?’ Farmers are the original stewards of the land, so they want to ensure that they are doing everything they can to continue to have healthy land that generates healthy crops generation after generation.”

To address increasing global food demand, the agriculture industry therefore needs to pair scientific advancements in performance with meaningful incentives for local growers and stakeholders to implement those advancements. The development of crop protection technologies, biological solutions, and nitrogen management plans represent important steps towards improvement. However, the agriculture industry and regulatory stakeholders must work to incentivize adoption of these technologies for them to create positive outcomes.

Reflecting on the progress the agriculture industry has made—and the innovations that lie ahead—Batra says, “Sustainability is relative, not absolute. If you can’t focus on improving the sustainability of all aspects of a product, focus on one or two things to improve so that the next generation of products is better than the first. Sustainability is a continuous improvement journey.”

For the agriculture industry to help prevent increased food scarcity, farmers, researchers, and government and industry partners must all embrace this mindset.

By Vittoria Valentine, Program Specialist, ACS Green Chemistry Institute

The ACS GCI Pharmaceutical Roundtable (GCIPR) is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2025 Industry Awards. These awards honor advancements in green chemistry within the pharmaceutical sector and related industries, as well as their global supply chains.

“Recognition of industrial scientists contributing to more sustainable practices is an evolutionary opportunity to both acknowledge scientific advancement and to propagate next-generation scientific improvements throughout the industry,” said John Tucker, Executive Director for Neurocrine Biosciences and GCIRP Awards Team Co-lead. “The awards are judged by some of the brightest minds in the industry and have expanded to encompass small and large molecule process chemistry, medicinal chemistry, AI and machine learning, and include the global CDMO supply chain. They track and inspire the march toward greater sustainability through the application of superior scientific innovation.”

 

2025 Peter J. Dunn Award for Green Chemistry & Engineering Impact in the Pharmaceutical Industry

The Peter J. Dunn Award for Green Chemistry and Engineering Impact in the Pharmaceutical Industry, established in 2016, honors exceptional industrial applications of innovative green chemistry and engineering in the pharmaceutical sector. This award recognizes projects that demonstrate significant improvements in environmental impact, safety, cost-efficiency, or overall effectiveness compared to existing technologies.

The Merck team, consisting of Patrick Fier, Patrick Moon, Scott McCann, Tao Liang, Greg Estrada, Marc Poirier, Reed Larson, Lu Wang, Gao Shang, and Fuh-Rong Tsay, received this award for their work, “From Bottleneck to Breakthrough: Developing a Sustainable and Scalable Manufacturing Process for a Complex ADC Drug-Linker”. They demonstrated the impact of applying green chemistry principles in the manufacturing process of the linker for the antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) Sacituzumab tirumotecan (MK-2870). Originally, the manufacturing process had long lead times due to the 20-step synthetic sequence and faced a major bottleneck with the final purification that limited production to less than 100 g per month even with 24/7 operation in a high-potency chromatography suite. Major improvements were achieved by developing a synthesis from a widely available natural product that cut seven potent steps down to three. The Process Mass Intensity (PMI) was reduced by approximately 75%, and the amount of energy-intensive chromatography time was decreased by >99% compared to the original route. This work highlights the advantages of investing in greener and more sustainable processes that naturally improve the global supply of medicines to patients. 

 

2025 Peter J. Dunn Award for Green Chemistry & Engineering Impact in the Pharmaceutical Industry

Corteva was awarded for “A Sustainably-Designed Manufacturing Process to Adavelt™ Active from Renewable Feedstocks.” The Corteva team clearly demonstrated the design of an efficient manufacturing process for Adavelt™ active, with sustainability as a core focus. They adopted green chemistry principles to maximize yield, reduce waste, and deliver a cost-effective solution for farmers. Building upon the first-generation supply route, they developed a process that eliminated three protecting groups, four steps, the use of precious metals, and replaced undesirable reagents with greener alternatives while producing an active ingredient effective against 20 diseases in over 30 crops.

Adavelt(TM) process

Their manufacturing process reduced waste generation by 92% and incorporates three renewable feedstocks (furfural, alanine and ethyl lactate), increasing the renewable carbon content for the active ingredient to 41% compared to the first-generation process. The Corteva team includes Nicholas Babij, Nakyen Choy, Megan Cismesia, David Couling, Nicole Hough, Yamini Krishnan, Caroline Long, Adriane Miller, Mark Muehlfeld, and Greg Whiteker.

 

2025 CMO Excellence in Green Chemistry Award Winner

The CMO Excellence in Green Chemistry Award seeks to recognize outstanding efforts by CMO companies in pharmaceutical green chemistry in support of pharmaceutical research, development and manufacturing that demonstrate compelling improvements in environmental impact, safety, and efficiency.

Olon S.p.A is awarded on their innovative work, “Recombinant DNA technology and chimeric protein expression for sustainable production of therapeutic peptides by microbial fermentation.” Leveraging their expertise in microbial fermentation, Olon S.p.A. has developed a flexible manufacturing platform for the synthesis of peptide therapeutics. This novel technology synthesizes peptides using microbial fermentation (rDNA expression), leading to reduced solvent and toxic material usage, as well as minimizing excess building blocks by using no protecting groups. This improving the overall PMI compared to the existing Solid Phase Peptide Synthesis (SPPS) methods. Moreover, as part of their platform, a Master Cell Bank (MCB) significantly reduces the lead time for manufacturing since the cells can be logarithmically proliferated to maximize the yield of desired product in the fermenter. They are adapting their novel Fermentation Platform towards commercial GLP-1 peptides and non-GLP-1 peptides. Olon's novel Fermentation Platform can help address the growing global demand for peptide therapeutics while employing the principles of green chemistry. The team consists of Piera Fonte, Gian Luca Bertetti, Antonella Malcangi, Alberto Oppedisano, Mattia Stucchi, Marianna Lembo, Guido Trione, Eleonora Amante, Giuseppe Borrelli, and Giuseppe Ferrante.

Olon S.p.A. facilities

 

Data Science and Modeling for Green Chemistry Award Winner

The Data Science and Modeling for Green Chemistry award aims to recognize the research and development of computational tools that guide the design of sustainable chemical processes and the execution of green chemistry that demonstrates compelling environmental, safety, and efficiency improvements over current technologies in the pharmaceutical industry and its allied industrial partners. 

The Merck and Sunthetics team, consisting of Kevin Stone, Daniela E. Blanco, Kaitlyn Brinza, Melodie Christensen, Shane Grosser, Yasser Khelalef, Abderrahman Lazizi, Andy Liaw, Spencer McMinn, Rafik Oulbsir, Victor Schultz, Ethan Tenison, César A. Urbina-Blanco, Ajit Vikram, and Yuting Xu, is awarded for their work, “Algorithmic Process Optimization (APO) for Pharmaceutical Development.” This technology makes use of state-of-the-art approaches in active learning, including Bayesian Optimization, to locate global optima in complex operational spaces that are expensive to evaluate experimentally. The Merck and Sunthetics team developed and demonstrated the APO technology allows for sustainable process design by minimizing material use and selecting non-toxic reagents, translating into reductions of the drug development costs. APO's versatility allows it to tackle numeric, discrete, and mixed-integer optimization problems with at least 11 input parameters, supporting both serial and parallel experimentation. Its ability to handle multi-objective optimizations focusing on cost and material efficiency with notable performance shows promise for AI-powered design for optimized and more sustainable processes.

 

Green Discovery Chemistry Award Winner

In 2025, the GCIPR Awards program expanded with the Green Discovery Chemistry Award. The Green Discovery Chemistry Award recognizes outstanding efforts in discovery chemistry that demonstrate compelling environmental, safety and/or efficiency improvements through green chemistry and engineering.

The Pfizer team has been awarded the inaugural prize for their submission, “Walk-Up Automated Reaction Profiling (WARP) System: A Tool for Reaction Monitoring Designed for Discovery Chemists.” The WARP system emphasizes waste reduction and minimizing exposure to hazardous substances. The technology provides a useful and versatile profiling tool for challenging reactions and is capable of improving reaction yields, shortening reaction times, and enhancing efficiency in various chemical processes while also reducing environmental impact. It features a simple user interface system to allow open-access use, offering a wide range of options for chemists and expanding the reach of the green chemistry technologies. The winning team consists of Muhammad Alimuddin, John Braganza, Paul Richardson, Wei Wang, and Alex Yanovsky, pictured below.

All award winners will present their innovations at the ACS GCI Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference in Pittsburgh, PA this June, in the session "Advancing Sustainable Processes in Pharma and Allied Industries Utilizing Green Chemistry Innovations."

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