DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-020-01841-6

Summary
Despite the benefits in human health from pharmaceuticals, their production has simultaneously given rise to severe environmental pollution. Using ciprofloxacin hydrochloride production as an example, the objectives of this study were to determine the key materials and stages in the life cycle of pharmaceutical production and to develop methods to prevent high materials/energy consumption and pollution. API synthesis had the largest environmental contribution, followed by galenic formulation, and packaging, which accounted for 42.9%, 41.9%, and 15.2%, respectively. The most important influencing factors of the first two stages were polyols which represent solvents or reaction media used and electricity (coal-fired generation). The damage categories of both factors were ranked from high to low as follows: human health, resources, and ecosystems. The ecological index points of human health in the API synthesis decreased by 8 k point (kPt) after solvent replacement, by 4 kPt after coal-based electricity generation was replaced with natural gas, and by 12 kPt after simultaneous optimization.

Relevance for Complex Systems Knowledge
The pharmaceutical production, as well as, any other industrial production can be strongly demanding in terms of energy and feedstock and are responsible of a large amount of wastes that require treatments before the disposal. A pharmaceutical product is a mixture of compounds each one is characterized by its life cycle assessment (LCA) and the overall LCA is not simply the sum of these one. This issue need to be approached considering the production of a pharmaceutical preparation as a complex system with its interaction with the environment and the ecosystem. This latter part involves also the use of the drugs and their metabolization with the production of other chemicals. (this aspect was not approached in this manuscript)

Point of Strength
This is a nice case study that could be introduced in the schools of Pharmacy as an example of system thinking starting from the life cycle assessment of a product.