Delivering the expertise to bring sustainability success to Pharma

To say it is a busy time in the pharmaceutical industry would be something of an understatement. Still, Alfa Laval expert Per-Åke Olsson, who has an unrivalled overview of this complex sector, believes there are exciting times ahead and major advancements about to be made, particularly when it comes to sustainability.

DATE 2025-01-15

With ageing populations, new medicines, medical patents expiring, a crowded marketplace, cost pressures, evolving regulations, budget-conscious governments and an increasing drive to make this growing industry more sustainable, pharma faces huge challenges and opportunities. 

It’s a landscape where customers are looking for expert guidance to plot a course to success, and Per-Åke, who heads up the industry management team in Business Unit Hygienic Fluid Handling, brings that in abundance. 

He says: “I have worked for Alfa Laval for more than 20 years and in the pharmaceutical industry itself for 30 years, and it is more complex now than ever.  

“I am particularly keen on helping our customers with their sustainability challenges – which are significant for this industry – and I also see that if we can help our customers to become flexible and competitive, we can move closer to health equality where more people can afford the medicine that can help them have better and healthier lives.  

“These are the things that drive me, and I am grateful that I am working for a company like Alfa Laval, which has the cross-sector expertise and flexible and efficient equipment that can deliver.” 

The sector has always had to move at speed to navigate the global winds of change. The Covid pandemic is the most obvious example – where companies found new modalities – i.e. ways of production – to get vital medicines out to market. 

However, Covid aside, the need for medicine is increasing across the globe. “In many ways, that is both good and bad,” Per-Åke says. “Medical breakthroughs mean we are able to offer more medicines for different conditions – and that means people are living longer, which brings with it a whole new set of challenges. Meanwhile, wealth brings its own issues with more fast food and less active jobs. So, for example, in China, the demand for diabetic and cardio-vascular treatments is now rocketing – as it has been in the US for decades.” 

Whether producing asthma medication, cancer drugs or Alzheimer therapeutics, pharmaceuticals have a significant environmental footprint, so it is increasingly imperative for the good of the planet that sustainability improvements are made. 

As Per-Åke explains: “It is absolutely critical that we act in this area. The sector generates 55% more CO2 emissions per turnover than the car industry. At the same time, in brewing, while you can make 1 litre of beer with 1.5 litres of water, in pharma, in order to make 1 litre of monoclonal antibody, which is the key component to making medicines for cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, etc., you require about 7,000 litres of water!” 

Woman in face mask

An example of how Alfa Laval is making a difference can be seen in its work with a leading manufacturer of diabetes medicine, where it has leveraged its dairy knowledge to update the media sterilization process. The process has now been developed to involve continuous heat recovery, similar to pasteurization in dairy. This takes place over a heat exchanger, using the heat recovery to sterilize different media batches and, by doing so, saving 80% energy costs and 80% CO2 emissions, along with significant water savings. 

It’s this kind of agile innovation which is crucial to succeeding in the sector. Looking forward, Per-Åke sees more work to be done on single-use equipment, which has the potential to offer significant boosts in terms of resource- and time-saving because there is no need for cleaning in place or to validate a cleaning cycle. There is also, of course, AI, which looms large in almost every industry. 

He says: “I think this is probably the industry that will benefit most from AI and data-driven manufacturing, and we are working hard on monitoring devices that capture data and give advice to the customer on possible routes to improvement. Ultimately, AI promises to change the landscape for everyone because it could personalize all treatments so that a patient gets a medicine that is tailor-made to their DNA.” 

Another issue for the future is ‘glocalization’ – or ‘nearshoring’ – which involves broadening supply chains so materials and ingredients can be found closer to areas of operation. Again, Covid brought this to light sharply as 80% of the raw material for the pharma industry came from China – and with the scale and severity of their lockdowns, there was a huge global impact. 

“We need to look at supply chains in different ways so producers have different options if one chain shuts down. We are also now seeing that a lot of contract manufacturing organizations are popping up which don’t just specialize in one product, which is helping with diversity of supply.” 

While sustainability, agility, expertise and efficiency are some of the core ingredients to success in pharma, for Per-Åke, we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that it is ultimately all about people – and the drive to improve lives. 

“I think that is why I like to work with the pharmaceutical industry because if I can help it improve the life of the human race and the earth, then I’m happy!” 

Per-Åke Olsson, Manager, Industry Management 

PerAke 2022

Highlighted industry: Pharmaceutical production

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Bringing a medicine to market requires cutting-edge technologies. To help pharmaceutical manufacturers succeed, Alfa Laval provides an extensive range of pharmaceutical production equipment, with proven components and systems. This includes fluid handling components, separation systems and heat exchangers.

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