Impactive project: 7.7 million for a cleaner, more competitive pharmaceutical industry

Producing drugs more ecologically and economically, without relocating to the other side of the world? This will soon be possible thanks to mechanochemistry, a breakthrough technology at the heart of the IMPACTIVE project supported by the University of Montpellier and coordinated by chemist Evelina Colacino of the Charles Gerhardt Institute. The project is funded to the tune of 7.7 million euros under the Horizon Europe program.

The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most polluting activities on the planet, with a carbon footprint larger than that of the automotive sector. To reduce this environmental impact, Evelina Colacino, a chemist at the Charles Gerhardt Institute, proposes mechanochemistry. This is a technology that frees us from the solvents used in traditional chemistry to synthesize molecules of pharmaceutical interest - the active ingredients of our medicines.

Freedom from polluting solvents

Most of our medicines are made from synthesized molecules. To obtain them, manufacturers use solvents to make different molecules interact, and these solvents account for 80% of the waste generated by the production of these molecules. Mechanochemistry proposes that molecules no longer interact using solvents, but rather by applying mechanical forces, using ball mills, reactive extrusion or acoustic activation. While this technology is already used by other industrial sectors, the IMPACTIVE project (innovative mechanochemical processes to synthesize green active pharmaceutical ingredients) is the first to apply it to the pharmaceutical industry.

Supported by the University of Montpellier, this project brings together 17 partners - including universities, research laboratories and the Merck and Novartis companies - and is coordinated by chemist Evelina Colacino from the Charles Gerhardt Institute in Montpellier. Convinced of its relevance, Europe has granted 7.7 million euros in funding to the researcher and her consortium to develop this technology, which holds great promise in many fields. 

Relocating production

Mecanochime not only offers the promise of a cleaner pharmaceutical industry, thanks to the reduction in solvents, but also of greater competitiveness, thanks to much lower energy consumption. Savings of up to 12% on production costs. This innovative technology could also help relocate some of the production currently concentrated in Asia. " One of the major challenges of this project is to make Europe more independent in the face of certain geopolitical issues, for example ," stresses Evelina Colacino.

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