(132b) Innovating for a Greener Future: Merck’s Strategy for Green & Sustainable API Manufacturing

Sustainable Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) manufacturing starts with a culture of sustainability which empowers chemists and engineers to incorporate a Green-by-Design strategy from the onset of route development. In this talk we will discuss building and maintaining that culture, as well as the deployment of guides, metrics, targets, and technologies which are used to iteratively assess and improve upon the greenness and sustainability of a process and associated laboratory activities throughout the development lifecycle. One such tool, which will be highlighted in this talk is the Streamlined PMI-LCA Tool, developed in collaboration with the ACS Green Chemistry Institute Pharmaceutical Roundtable (ACS GCIPR). While process mass intensity (PMI) is quick to calculate but does not consider the types of raw materials used, and full life cycle assessment (LCA) is too resource-intensive to permit multiple rounds of scoring, the Streamlined PMI-LCA tool makes rapid cradle-to-gate sustainability assessments accessible to process chemists and engineers.