Sustainable Procurement & CSR News - Pharmaceutical Industry

When Virginia Mason’s anesthesia technician Randy Johnson and staff anesthesiologist Dr. Ryan Pong learned that desflurane had a global warming potential 20 times greater than its alternative gases in 2015, they decided to work together on persuading their colleagues to reduce the use desflurane in favor of its alternatives. Through casual but persistent conversations over a five-year period, the duo ultimately convinced every member of their department that other gasses could work without harming patient care. Their success culminated in September 2019 when Virginia Mason Medical Center completely eliminated desflurane use.

As the nation confronts a reckoning over racial inequality, tech giants — with their vast budgets, institutional power, and growing focus on health — could be well-positioned to make a difference. They could invest in health tech initiatives to close racial gaps in local communities, conduct inclusive research, and create more affordable, accessible products.

At its General Assembly on June 9, 2020, the World Federation of Public Health Associations (WFPHA), an international organization comprised of over 115 associations representing 5 million public health professionals around the world, approved a new policy calling for immediate actions to close coal mines and coal plants and to invest in cheaper, healthier, and fairer alternatives. 

The WFPHA’s Call to Ban Coal for Electricity Production adds urgency and specificity to the crescendo of international health bodies calling on governments, multilateral institutions, and health organizations to take immediate action to phase out fossil fuel use and transition to healthier, renewable sources of energy. It builds upon the Federation’s prior resolutions and declarations, including the Kolkata Call to Action that called for “a rapid phase-out of coal” to limit further global warming and prevent illnesses and deaths associated with air pollution.

A survey by medical software provider Kyruus of 1,000 adult patients found that nearly three quarters had tried virtual care during the COVID crisis and more than 75 percent were very or completely satisfied with their experience.

The world was already waking up to the economic as well as environmental need for the shift from a linear to a circular approach for a sustainable future. Most investors, governments and healthcare providers have aligned on the need to set greenhouse gas reduction targets and are scrutinizing their indirect carbon emissions related to the goods and services they procure and the companies they invest in.

Such shifting market demands are seeing healthcare systems take a holistic view of the entire care pathway: the environmental impact of the medicine itself, use of power and resources by the organization and its supply chain, and the impacts of patients with poorly managed chronic disease.

Scientist.com, the healthcare industry’s leading marketplace for life science research, announced today the launch of VERIF.i®, a standardized supplier pre-assessment program. Research organizations use VERIF.i to evaluate the facilities, personnel and processes supporting the sourcing of human biological samples and research services involving animals. Supplier pre-assessments improve quality management, reduce costs and reduce risk.

There has been so much focus over the years on how to treat infectious waste from hospitals and other healthcare facilities, but far less attention when it comes to organic waste produced there. This can pose a serious health hazard.

If not properly disposed of, infectious organic waste – which includes kitchen waste and pathological waste such as placentas – can attract flies, rats and feral animals, all capable of spreading disease.  It smells terrible as it decomposes, and generates methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. In many countries, there are laws that force medical facilities to incinerate placentas and other waste, despite the pollution this process causes.

It doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, there is a safer and more sustainable, as well as low-cost and low-tech, way to dispose of this waste, and even provide environmental benefits when it comes to energy use with less reliance on fossil fuels. That way is through biodigestion.

At present, all surgical and FFP2 face masks must be thrown away after a few hours of use. To offset the shortage of protective equipment, scientists, physicians and manufacturers are working together to explore ways to reuse them safely. Professor Philippe Cinquin provides an overview of the methods being tested by this consortium.

AstraZeneca has launched an ambitious $1billion programme to reduce its climate impact to zero - and it will plant an AZ Forest with 50 million trees.

The company, which is building its global headquarters and R&D centre in Cambridge, aims for zero emissions from its own operations by 2025 and says it will ensure its entire value chain is carbon negative by 2030.

 Stericycle Environmental Solutions, a leading provider of environmental and regulated waste management solutions, today announced it has been named a 2019 Sustainability, Environmental Achievement & Leadership (SEAL) Award winner for its impactful drug take back initiatives that have collected and destroyed more than 2.89 million pounds of pharmaceuticals. Earning recognition in the Environmental Initiative category, Stericycle's program ensures unused or expired drugs are properly disposed to prevent them from making their way back into soil, waterways and other parts of our ecosystem.

harmacists, pharmacy technicians, and other pharmacy staff felt overtaxed even before the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic hit, according to findings from the 2019 National Pharmacist Workforce Study. The survey results showed that 69% of full-time pharmacists reported that their workload “increased” or “greatly increased” compared with the prior year.

Although the profession is much more racially and gender diverse than in previous years, pharmacy staff reported age, race, and gender discrimination, according to the findings. The Midwest Pharmacy Workforce Research Consortium has conducted the annual study for the Pharmacy Workforce Center (PWC) since 2000.

Blockchain startup Fantom has been given the green light to start tracking medicinal drugs in Afghanistan to help stem the country’s counterfeiting problem.

Researchers have developed a sustainable biomedical device, consisting of by-products from the food industry, for use in regenerative medicine.

Scientists in the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country’s NanoBioCel and Biomat groups have developed a novel biomedical device comprised of soy protein and chitin, by-products from the food industry which are typically discarded in industrial processes.

Earlier this week, the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis released “Solving the Climate Crisis: The Congressional Action Plan for a Clean Energy Economy and a Healthy, Resilient, and Just America,” a comprehensive plan with ambitious and actionable solutions to address climate change.

The 538-page report is broken down into different topic areas, including one titled “Improve Public Health and Manage Climate Risks to Health Infrastructure.” (pages 313-338)

The report states, “Health issues and emergencies caused by surging climate impacts can strain the capacity of hospitals, public health professionals, and the entire health sector.”

healthcare resources at all levels are being directed toward fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. While this has resulted in encouraging progress, many non-coronavirus patients are finding it difficult to access care due to limited available resources, while others avoid seeking in-person medical treatment for fear of exposure to the virus.

This trend is especially concerning among patients in need of chronic care, who account for 76% of all physician visits. For those with chronic diseases, failure to access care can lead to high-acuity care episodes, a situation that is dangerous and disruptive to patients, in addition to being costly for patients, payors, and providers alike.

To avoid these negative outcomes, and to preserve specialist availability and critical health care resources, health care organizations must find ways to provide safe access to primary care for patients with chronic conditions. One potential avenue for providing this care is through the use of eConsults and other forms of telehealth for chronic care management.

Last year marked the 60th anniversary of one of the most influential concepts in lab animal welfare—the three Rs. To promote the humane treatment of laboratory animals, these principles urge scientists to replace animals with new technologies, reduce the number of animals used in experiments, and refine lab protocols to minimize animal suffering. First outlined in the 1959 book, The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique, the three Rs have become a cornerstone of lab animal legislation and oversight throughout the world.

La réforme du Livret de développement durable solidaire, actée par la loi Sapin II fin 2016, aboutit enfin. Les banques sont désormais obligées d’allouer une partie de cette épargne au financement de l’économie sociale et solidaire. Les épargnants pourront quant à eux donner leurs intérêts et/ou leur capital à des associations à partir du 1er octobre.

Health care practitioners and professionals are central to the world’s defeat of COVID-19, as well as to our societies’ ability to recover from this global health and economic crisis. These workers require a safe work environment even when scenarios are changing rapidly, and that is why a set of ethical principles that embraces health worker safety can be so important.

Supporters and practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine have warned that the discipline is threatened by those who continue to trade in endangered animals.

The small segment of the TCM community that insists on using endangered animal parts in the pharmaceutical side of TCM, ignoring welfare considerations and the idea of respecting biodiversity, could destroy its reputation for good, they argue.

“The balance with nature is a key point [of TCM], and the use of [endangered] animals is against nature,” Dr Lixing Lao, president of the Virginia University of Integrative Medicine, told the Guardian.

“Even in the principles of TCM practice, this is not good,” Lao said, referring to Tang dynasty experts 1,500 years ago who believed 100% of TCM could be derived from plants.

NHS England and the NHS Confederation have established a new centre to investigate the impact of race and ethnicity on health, amid significant concerns about the disproportionate affect of COVID-19 on people from black, Asian and ethnic minority (BAME) backgrounds.

The NHS Race and Health Observatory is tasked with identifying and tackling the specific health challenges facing those with BAME origin, providing analysis and policy recommendations to improve health outcomes for NHS patients, communities and staff.