Representatives of the pharmaceutical industry have responded to letters sent by EPHA and partners urging the industry to make their global supply chains transparent and adopt environmentally responsible management practices. Current industry actions are non-binding and fragmented. As manufacturers and suppliers, and nodes in a multi-billion industry, pharma companies must do more and support the development of mandatory standards and regulation.
Representatives of the pharmaceutical industry have responded to letters sent by EPHA and partners urging the industry to make their global supply chains transparent and adopt environmentally responsible management practices. Current industry actions are non-binding and fragmented. As manufacturers and suppliers, and nodes in a multi-billion industry, pharma companies must do more and support the development of mandatory standards and regulation.
In August 2015, as follow up from the ‘Bad Medicine’ report, EPHA together with consumer organisations SumOfUs and Ethical Consumer had sent letters to the chief executives of 19 multinational pharma companies asking them to stop buying active antibiotic ingredients (API) from polluting factories, ensure full transparency along the global supply chain, and promote cleaner production techniques.
In an open letter published by EFPIA, AESGP and EGA, representing the R&D, non-prescription and generic and biosimilar manufacturers in Europe, the industry expressly states that companies ’’take seriously any negative environmental impacts that [their] products and manufacturing might have’’, and that they ’’support immediate action and global solidarity’’ when it comes to tackling the AMR problem. It also affirms their commitment to work with ’’governments, regulators and international organisations to raise standards’’.
While EPHA welcomes these statements, the fact remains that pharma factories, which tend to be located in third countries, are able to continue polluting the environment due to blatant regulatory gaps in those countries, where production is about producing cheaply and in huge quantities. The industry must urgently introduce transparency in their global supply chains – indeed as the electronics and textile industries were forced to do by public outcry following deadly scandals.
Despite the letter from the industry federations, it is however remarkable that EPHA and our partners have yet to receive a direct response from either Pfizer or Teva, the companies specifically named in the ‘Bad Medicines’ report.
