Industrial research: Drug companies must adopt green chemistry

In the past decade, many large pharmaceutical companies have moved to using green-chemistry practices for drug discovery, development and manufacturing. These firms include ours, Amgen, and others such as the Merck Group, Abbott, Johnson & Johnson and Roche. Ranking systems such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices and the Pacific Sustainability Index1 track how well firms are doing. This shift is being driven by the realization that processes that are cheaper and environmentally superior deliver a competitive advantage.