Pharmaceuticals have undoubtedly made our world a better place, ensuring longer and healthier lives. However, pharmaceuticals and their active metabolites are rapidly emerging environmental toxicants. It is thus critical that we fully understand, and mitigate where necessary, the environmental impact resulting from their production, use and disposal.
To this end, ENVIROMED addresses two aspects of the environmental impact of pharmaceuticals: (a) the impact of the processes involved in manufacturing the compound, and (b) the impact of the compound itself during its lifecycle. The project addresses key knowledge gaps concerning the effects of pharmaceutical compounds and their derivatives in the environment, supporting a better understanding of their environmental impact throughout their lifecycle. Through extensive monitoring campaigns and scientific studies, ENVIROMED has generated evidence regarding the occurrence of pharmaceuticals in the environment, their persistence, environmental fate and toxicity, using in-vitro and in-vivo models, as well as computational approaches for environmental risk assessment and fate prediction. Relevant toxicity endpoints, ecotoxicity databases and expert systems for rapid toxicity prediction were also considered, supporting the assessment of the environmental implications of pharmaceuticals throughout their lifecycle.
Moreover, the project has developed and demonstrated a set of complementary technologies and methods aimed at enabling greener and more efficient pharmaceutical production. These include green-by-design approaches for pharmaceutical development; novel spectroscopic sensing technologies for liquid, surface and wastewater monitoring; and a robust Continuous Biomanufacturing line supported by digitalisation technologies, including AI-enabled process optimisation and prediction, digital twins and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). These developments address different stages of the pharmaceutical lifecycle, from drug design and manufacturing to environmental monitoring and assessment.
The project has generated new evidence on the occurrence and potential effects of pharmaceutical compounds in wastewater and marine environments, and has provided new knowledge and tools to support more sustainable pharmaceutical manufacturing and environmental management. Findings from the project's different research, technological and methodological activities have been brought together into policy-relevant observations and recommendations, further synthesised in the project's policy brief, supporting the transition towards greener and more sustainable pharmaceuticals. Open datasets, an online training platform, scientific publications and dissemination activities further support knowledge transfer and uptake of the results beyond the consortium.
