Ayming and ERM win mandate for green solvent manufacturing in pharmaceuticals

29 January 2025 Consultancy.uk

Ayming and ERM have been appointed to help realise the UK’s Sustainable Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Programme. The two consultancies will now help to build a supply chain consortium for green solvents.

The chemical and pharmaceuticals industry is one of the largest industries in the UK, and is a hugely important part of the nation's economy. In 2021, chemical industry revenues in the UK stood at £75.2 billion, with gross value added of £30.7 billion. Because of this, as Britain looks to transition to a zero emissions economy, finding a way of doing so without impacting the chemicals industry is important to the country’s continued prosperity.

Solvents have the highest aggregate Greenhouse Gas (GHG) impact of any group of raw materials for most small-molecule pharmaceutical manufacturers. Significant beyond the chemicals sector, as they are used in many consumer goods and cosmetics companies, they also have other negative impacts, such as toxicity.

While water-based solvent flow chemistry solutions are being developed, and the pharmaceutical industry is working on solvent recovery and reuse solutions, these will not reduce the GHG emissions necessary to achieve Net Zero by 2050 or before. Solvents produced using green chemistry and bio-based or recycled carbon will be required – and very limited volumes of sustainable solvents are available to the pharmaceutical industry.

To help deal with this, the Sustainable Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Programme will seed funding to support the development of a consortium and identify barriers to scaling up and integrating green solvents in sustainable medicine manufacturing. Its primary outcome will be to prepare a case for Grand Challenge funding in the Summer of 2025. The Grand Challenge phase of the Sustainable Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Programme provides large-scale collaborative research and development awards of up to £10 million, involving at least three partners in the medicines manufacturing supply chain. Only recipients of the initial seed funding are invited to apply for this Grand Challenge phase.

As part of this, the programme has tasked consultancies ERM and Ayming with building the Grand Challenge consortium. A release from the firms states they welcome interest from a number of backgrounds, including medicine manufactures producing medicines for the NHS; companies outside the medicines industry using significant volumes of solvents and investing in reducing Scope 3 emissions from purchased raw materials; and specialists in green chemistry and chemical producers.

The statement added, “Bringing together ERM’s expertise in sustainability consulting and Ayming’s proven track record in innovation funding, this partnership is uniquely positioned to tackle the complex challenges of decarbonising pharmaceutical manufacturing. Through funding from Innovate UK, the companies aim to accelerate the adoption of low-carbon solutions, setting new benchmarks for sustainability within the sector.”