The large and steadily growing demand for medicines combined with their inherent resource-intensive manufacturing necessitates a relentless push for their sustainable production. Pharmaceutical companies are constantly seeking to perform reliable life cycle assessments of their medicinal products and assess the true value of their sustainable development achievements; however, they find themselves impeded by the lack of a universal metric system that allows for objective quantification of the underlying core denominators. Guided by the unambivalent purpose of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 12, which aims at substantially reducing production waste by 2030, and driven by a vision to catalyze greener active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing around the globe, the authors set out to overcome current obstacles by defining an improved model for the metric named innovation green aspiration level, iGAL 2.0. We propose yield and convergence as new key sustainability indicators and include a new formula for convergence with potential applicability in computer assisted synthesis planning (CASP) algorithms. The improved statistical model of iGAL 2.0 represents a valuable extension to the common API process waste metrics, process mass intensity (PMI) and complete E factor (cEF), by putting those measures into perspective: iGAL 2.0 enables determination of relative process greenness (RPG) to identify potentially underperforming and environmentally concerning processes early and thereby deliver environmental value. At the same time, iGAL 2.0 generates economic value since reduced waste correlates to lower API production costs. The metric is complemented by its scorecard companion to highlight the impact of innovation on reductions of API manufacturing waste, enabling scientists to readily communicate the value of their work to their peers, managers, and the general public. We believe that iGAL 2.0 can readily be adopted by pharmaceutical firms around the globe and thereby empower and inspire their scientists to make meaningful and significant contributions to global sustainability.

Professor John Edwin Field passed away on October 21st, 2020 at the age of 84. Professor Field was widely regarded as a leader in high-strain rate physics and explosives. During his career in the Physics and Chemistry of Solids (PCS) Group of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University, John made major contributions into our understanding of friction and erosion, brittle fracture, explosives, impact and high strain-rate effects in solids, impact in liquids, and shock physics. The contributions made by the PCS group are recognized globally and the impact of John’s work is a lasting addition to our knowledge of the dynamic effects in materials. John graduated 84 Ph.D. students and collaborated broadly in the field. Many who knew him attribute their success to the excellent grounding in research and teaching they received from John Field.

Following our goal to devise a unified green chemistry metric that inspires innovation in sustainable drug manufacturing across the pharmaceutical industry, we herein disclose joint efforts by IQ, the ACS GCI PR and academia, leading to the significantly improved 'innovation Green Aspiration Level' (iGAL) methodology. Backed by the statistical analysis of 64 drug manufacturing processes encompassing 703 steps across 12 companies, we find that iGAL affords an excellent proxy for molecular complexity and presents a valuable molecular weight-based 'fixed' goal. iGAL thereby accurately captures the impact of green process inventiveness and improvements, making it a useful innovation-driven green metric. We conclude by introducing the comprehensive, yet easy-to-use and readily adaptable Green Chemistry Innovation Scorecard web calculator, whose graphical output clearly and effectively illustrates the impact of innovation on waste reduction during drug manufacture.