Technologies for Improving Sustainability in API Manufacturing

The pharmaceutical industry is pursuing sustainability and carbon neutrality with ambitious goals. Supported by groups like the Green Chemistry Roundtable (ACS), innovators and CDMOs are exploring technologies such as continuous flow, enzymatic reactions, and photochemistry. However, modifying commercial processes is often impractical due to regulatory hurdles. Since API manufacturing is solvent-intensive and waste-generating, alternative strategies are needed. Recovery and re-use technologies can reduce solvent volumes in transit and minimise waste disposal, all at relatively low energy cost. This presentation explores scalable separation technologies suitable for commercial-scale recovery and re-use of key solvents, reducing process mass intensity (PMI) and carbon footprint.