Future-Proof Pharma: Driving Sustainable and Resilient Growth
In the competitive and complex world of pharmaceutical manufacturing, growth that is sustainable and resilient must be built upon key operational principles.
With global shifts in populations, demographics, politics, regulations and climate change exerting pressures from all sides, only the most agile and innovative producers, supported by expert partners, can thrive.
Future-proofing pharma does not involve preparing for a static state where tried and trusted technology can operate to produce familiar treatments against ailments and diseases for well-defined patient populations.
Future-proofing in this business means pushing the limits for the planet and its people. It means combining agility with reliability; embedding expert knowledge, creative thinking and innovation to maximize the use of resources and ensure a continuous optimizing of production that will drive operational sustainability and resilience.
Growing demand for safe and affordable medicine
In a recent report, the UN estimates that the global population will grow to 10.3 billion people by the mid-2080s, with the number of elderly people projected to double in that time. This and a growing urbanized middle class will increase the demand for new, affordable and specialized medicines. [https://www.un.org/en/UN-projects-world-population-to-peak-within-this-century]
Meanwhile climate change is impacting the world, pressure is being put on global water and energy resources like never before, and of the many industries staking a claim on their use, the pharmaceutical industry is one of the most demanding.
Sustainable growth
Whether producing Alzheimers therapeutics, asthma medication or cancer drugs, it is impossible to ignore the significant environmental footprint of pharmaceuticals manufacturing. This reality drives the need for sustainability improvements as demand for medications grows.
This is a goal shared by both pharmaceutical producers and Alfa Laval, who within its own sustainability strategy is committed to reducing emissions, decreasing water and energy consumption and designing for circularity to help mitigate the industry’s impact on our planet and natural resources.
As part of this strategy, Alfa Laval has committed to be carbon neutral by 2030, using the strict definition by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. Its targets, based on this definition, are net-zero for scope 1 and 2 by 2027, together with a 50% reduction of scope 3 by 2030. All scopes should be net-zero by 2050. [https://www.alfalaval.com/about-us/sustainability/]
And production of pharmaceuticals is strikingly resource-intensive. This is a sector that has a CO2 emission intensity – ie the amount of CO2 emitted per unit of economic output or activity, allowing for comparison of emissions efficiency across different scales of operation – which is around 55% more than the car industry [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959652618336084].
Pharmaceutical processing is also extremely heavy on water use. The volume of ultra-pure water and steam required for cell culture media and rigorous equipment sterilization, for example, makes pharma subject to a number of growing constraints as infrastructure becomes more stressed. The need to reduce water consumption and maximize circularity in systems within pharmaceutical operations is undeniable.
With a long history of working with the water sector, Alfa Laval brings a wealth of experience in this area to the pharma industry and is supporting producers to develop circular systems, boost re-use, safeguard water security and comply with strict regulations for industrial outlets.
Partnering up to boost R&D
For pharmaceutical companies the continued and growing need to develop sustainable treatments for the many unaddressed diseases and conditions, fuels investment in R&D. which unless properly managed can put pressure on profitability.
As these R&D efforts provide new opportunities, producers must either develop the capacity and manufacturing methods to commercialize new products or find suitable partners with available manufacturing capacity.
Beyond these challenges, the industry faces significant disruption to long established supply chains. Lessons from the Covid pandemic have inspired governments around the world to legislate nearshoring and recent protectionist policies have forever changed supply chain stability.
The situation demands robust systems and a flexible approach backed by an expert partner to help deal with these challenges. Opportunities exist but only if the pharmaceutical industry reacts with a sense of urgency to push the boundaries of today.
Pioneering a positive impact
The World Health Organisation states: “Universal health coverage can only be achieved when there is affordable access to safe, effective and quality medicines and health products.” [https://www.who.int/our-work/access-to-medicines-and-health-products]
Alfa Laval is committed to playing its role in achieving this by pioneering a positive impact across the sector and working with thought-leaders at a global and local level to improve profitability, maximize patent windows and competitiveness, promote social responsibility and reduce environmental impact.
Because when pharmaceutical suppliers and partners get it right for their customers, the world benefits from the innovations that result. Ultimately, by empowering producers to push current boundaries and to innovate the medicines of tomorrow, the result is new opportunities for producers, and improvements in health, resilience, longevity and accessibility for a growing and ageing global population.
With Alfa Laval’s core expertise in separation, heat transfer, and fluid handling, it can support pharma organizations in the drive to future-proof by supplying the innovative, sustainable and energy-efficient technology that is required.
And by delivering these innovative solutions, Alfa Laval empowers leading pharmaceutical companies to continuously optimize processes to maximize efficiency and return on investment (ROI), in the face of increased price pressure and legislative uncertainty.
This shared mission comes from Alfa Laval’s own dedication to innovating and finding new ways of doing things, delivered by a team of experts with a broad range of talents to deliver impactful solutions.
In fact, Alfa Laval has shown its commitment in this area by sharpening its own focus on the accelerated production of safe and affordable medicine for those in need, with the launch of a new strategic business area – the Food & Pharma Division.
As part of the restructure, Alfa Laval has substantially reinforced its pharma workforce and committed an additional EUR 8 million to R&D and operations over the next four years. This will accelerate partnerships with thought-leaders and deliver tailor-made solutions faster and more sustainably.
Global presence, local delivery
With a global presence, combined with expert local teams on the ground, Alfa Laval is also ideally placed to help optimize supply chains, identifying and resolving any issues and blockages across the ecosystem.
Alfa Laval also has extensive application knowledge of multiple related industries and has experience in leveraging insights from across these different sectors into pharma to empower customers to continuously optimize their processes.
A case in point is Alfa Laval’s heat transfer technology, which has played a key role in helping to develop and optimize media sterilization processes for pharma customers. For one diabetes-medicine maker, for example, Alfa Laval further developed its continuous heat-recovery technology to rework media sterilization, cutting energy costs and CO₂ by 80%.
Innovating at speed
Global reach means Alfa Laval has the capacity and commitment for collaborative development, to scale-up innovations to industrial production at speed, while supporting swift regulatory approvals and increasing patent windows.
The COVID pandemic represented both an enormous challenge and an opportunity to accelerate for the pharma industry and for Alfa Laval in the efforts to develop new medicines at an unprecedented pace.
Under these challenging conditions, Alfa Laval’s partnerships with the pharmaceutical producers deepened, with the need to accelerate project deliveries, and develop new manufacturing capabilities to speed medication for the world.
The lessons from this global crisis are now a part of an expanded toolbox to deliver the next generations of medicines to serve a world with changing demographics, geopolitics and climate change, and Alfa Laval is well prepared to respond with agility and imagination, having taken the learnings from the hard lessons of COVID 19.
Future-proofing pharma
This is agility and innovation in action, and the very essence of future-proofing pharma, and driving sustainable and resilient growth.
With its ingrained expertise and industry-leading pharmaceutical manufacturing equipment to hand, developed from 140 years of knowledge and experience, Alfa Laval will continue to support customers to innovate and produce the medicines of tomorrow.
This is not about waiting for the future; it is about making it happen. This is an industry that can benefit significantly from data-driven manufacturing, for example, and Alfa Laval is working hard on monitoring devices that capture data and give advice to the customer on possible routes to improvement.
There are many uncertainties ahead for all of us, but one constant is that Alfa Laval will continue to generate, and make available, innovative and sustainable ideas to help the pharmaceutical industry’s evolution, for the benefit of its customers, the planet, and its people everywhere.
