Green solvents in the biotechnology-based pharmaceutical industry

Abstract

Many of the biotechnological companies (at least in Europe) are small or micro start-upscreated inside universities that aim to work in a sustainable way from the beginning oftheir projects.Given the current cost of green solvents, even considering they are becoming moreaccessible to the biotech-pharmaceutical industry, there still are economic impedimentsto consider. For emerging countries trying to enter the global market, the use of these sol-vents can become economically unsustainable in the middle/long term if they have to addthis extra cost to the price of their products, and consequently would cause them to stopbeing competitive as everything is more expensive in smaller markets. To avoid this, thereare two possible solutions: or third world countries get subsidized to replace traditionalsolvents with green ones, especially when it is considered as a benefit for the whole world,orthetraditional strategies remain economically more viablethan greener alternatives withthe consequent generation of more waste in the environment. To continue to ignore theneed to change to sustainable practices is a risk we can no longer avoid. Decisions must bemade in order to lower or completely stop the environmental crisis the planet is facing. Byfortune, there are contests to fund sustainable chemistry research to aid communities withfew resources (https://www.isc3.org/en/activities/research.html).Hopefully, soon, awareness of environmental care will spread even faster and will beapplied in both the developed and undeveloped countries. The planet is one and we allinhabit it and as such, we will all share the consequences of our actions, whether they befor the good or not.