Pfizers miljö- och ansvarsblogg

Nature and Environment Prize 2012

Kategorier: Andras arbete, Miljö, Socialt ansvar

I just realized that very soon (on Monday, Dec 12) is the last day to send in nominations to the Nature and Environment Prize 2012. It is a prize awarded by the Nordic Council, and it is intended for an individual, a company or an organization that have made great contribution to bio-diversity. Since bio-diversity is of great important to us all, and not least to the pharmaceutical industry and patients around the globe (several pharmaceutical substances come from nature), I of course like to draw your attention to this. If you know anyone who should be worth this - send in the nomination!

Interesting environmental discussions in several fora

Kategorier: Andras arbete, Miljö, Pfizers egna arbete, Socialt ansvar

I have had two very exciting days, full of interesting discussions om pharmaceuticals and the environment, in three very different fora. Yesterday morning I had an internal meeting at the Pfizer office in Silverdal in Sollentuna, Sweden, where I met Pfizer colleagues working with our off-patent product portfolio. We had good discussions on green pharmaceuticals:

- What it is

- How to evaluate greenness and how to “certify” it

- And what type of business opportunities there could be with a greener product portfolio

We of course entered in to really interesting discussions on green critiera and green economic incentives. For details on these matters please read my blog posts from e.g. Oct 3, Sept 28, and Sept 23. We also tried to put the “greener product portfolio discussions” in a broader perspective of other types of “added values” we can bring to society. For more details on these ideas read the blog post from e.g. Oct 4 and Aug 23. Please also read a detailed discussion on “4 steps to a sustanable use of pharmaceuticals” in the blog post from Feb 8.

4 steps to sustainability

After the internal meeting, I met with the expert group on Pharmaceuticals and the Environment, supporting the All Party Committee on Environmental Objectives (in Swedish “Miljömålsberedningen“). You can read about our work in my blog posts from e.g. Nov 14 and  Sept 19. It is really a privilege to sit down and have very open and honest discussions with representatives from pretty much every single stakeholder in the sector. Not surprisingly we had good and long discussions on several of the ideas on actions/objectives that were originally presented by the Swedish MPA in the Dec 16, 2009 report on “increased environmental requirements on pharmaceutical manufacturing” (find some of my comments to those ideas in my blog post from Dec 17, 2009):

- Inclusion of environmental requirements in GMP

- Inclusion of Environmental Risk Assessments into the market authorization process for pharmaceuticals

- Considerations of environmental aspects in the pricing and reimbursement system, i.e. green criteria and green economic incentives

And today, the discussions on these matters and others continued when LIF’s (LIF - the Swedish Research Based Pharmaceutical Industry Association) environmental committee met at the LIF Office in Stockholm. For me it was a special meeting, since I “transferred” from chairman of the committee to “administratively responsible” for the committee. The reason of course that I nowadays work part time at the LIF Office. And I like to take the opportunity here to say thanks for all support Matilda Holst have given me during the years in her role at the LIF Office when I have been working as the chairman, and to also welcome Gisela Holm from AstraZeneca as the new chairperson of the committee.

In addition to the already mentioned items up for discussion today at the committee meeting, we also had a good presentation made by Karl Lilja from IVL, the Swedish Environmental Research Institute, on the environmental classification of pharmaceutical substances scheme at Fass.se. IVL has been the reviewer of all company submissions of environmental classifications of pharmaceutical substances since the beginning of 2005, so they have built up a significant amount of knowledge, experience and data. Read more about the Swedish classification scheme at Fass.se and on LIF’s web site.

So many interesting discussions - it is really a privilege to be working with all these people in such an interesting field! I am really looking forward to 2012! Discussions will be more intense, and more interesting, than ever!

Action Item 7.2 in the National Pharmaceutical Strategy

Kategorier: Loggboken, Miljö, Socialt ansvar, Sverige

Yesterday I participated in a conference arranged by the “County Council Network on Pharmaceuticals and the Environment” (in Swedish: Landstingens nätverk för Läkemedel och Miljö). This was the third conference arranged by the network (see my comments from last year’s conference via this link).

I had the opportunity to participate in the morning session which started out with Åke Wennmalm (SustainPharma and previously the Environmental Director at Stockholm County Council) describing a 10-year long journey with Pharmaceuticals and the Environment. There is a lot of things that have happened in the last decade!

After Åke, Nina Viberg from SKL entered the stage and she described some ongoing initiatives, e.g. the National Pharmaceutical Strategy and the All-Party Committee on Environmental Objectives. You can read more about these initiatives in my blog post “A Regulatory Update on Pharmaceuticals and the Environment“.

Nina passed the word over to me, and I went in to some more details on the environmental action items (especially items 7.1 and 7.2) in the National Pharmaceutical Strategy:

7.1. Investigate if the environmental aspects should be considered when decisions on subsidy for a pharmaceutical are decided (Lead: Ministry of Health and Social Affairs): Review of possibilities to – within the context of the national reimbursement system - increasingly take environmental considerations.

7.2. Encourage voluntary control of emissions from pharmaceutical factories (Lead: LIF): Introduction of a voluntary environmental labeling of pharmaceutical products.

As you will know from my previous blog posts, I will be the project manager for action item 7.2 and will hopefully be able to connect 7.2 strongly with action item 7.1 which is to be managed by Sofia Wallström in her review. I think it is very important, and it feels reasonable,  that society presents some form of economic incentives if industry is supposed to “volontary implement a system and an assessment model”… I described the work that has been made so far to develop a assessment model by the task force initiated by the LIF Round Table (see the blog post from Sept 28 and follow the links within that blog post for more details).

For the first time I also showed a draft project plan for the “action item 7.2 work task”. As you notice, it is still a draft but it will soon become more formal and official…

Draft project plan...

It might be hard to read but in essence it has four deliverables:

1. An e-learning tool to educate and train colleagues: “What is a green pharmaceutical, and how do you assess grenness?”

2. Development of a model for environmental assessment of pharmaceuticals, with clear criteria to identify green products

3. Development of a tool/methodology/connection between the assessment model and green economic incentives within the pricing and reimburesment system

4. Establish of an organisation to handle/manage the models and systems

As you understand there are very important cross references between 7.2 and 7.1 (i.e. the Sofia Wallström review if environmental aspects can be taken within the frame of the pricing and reimbursement system)!

More to come - stay tuned!

Pharmaceuticals and the Environment - discussions continue

Kategorier: Miljö

The day before yesterday, i.e. Dec 2, I participated in a pharmaceuticals and the environment session at the Swedish Society of Medicine’s annual gathering (in Swedish: “Svenska Läkaresällskapets Riksstämma“). The session was arranged by Doctors for the Environment (”Läkare för Miljön“) and participating lecturers in addition to myself were Ingrid Eckerman from Doctors for the Environment, Björn Olsen (physician from Uppsala), Magnus Thyberg (from TLV, the Swedish Pricing and Reimbursement agency), and Jerker Forsell (from Ministry for the Environment).

The program looked like this (as it is presented on the website for Doctors for the Environment):

PROGRAM

Läkemedel i miljön – hot mot dagens och morgondagens generationer? Ingrid Eckerman, LfM

Antibiotika i miljön – ett hot mot infekterade patienter  Björn Olsen, UAS

Vad kan TLV göra för att förhindra miljöfarliga läkemedel? Magnus Thyberg, TLV

Ändring i läkemedelslagstiftning ger EU möjlighet att påverka läkemedelsproduktionen positivt i Indien och Kina  Jerker Forssell, Miljödepartementet

Vad är ett grönt läkemedel? Bengt Mattson, Pfizer/LIF

The slides will be available through the website of Doctors for the Environment, so will not go into any details what so ever here on the blog. But I do really recommend that you flip through the slides when they are made available on the website. It was good and interesting presentations. I have to admit that I was very impressed, and actually scared, by the presentation from Björn Olsen. Antimicrobial resistance is really a scaring threat to society…

My own presentation was on “green pharmaceuticals” and a model to assess greenness. The background to the model is of course the work that has been made by the LIF Round Table task force during 2011. See the following blog post, and follow the links within that blog post, for more details: Sept 28, 2011.

I will give a similar presentation tomorrow to the Pharmaceutical and Environmental Network of the Swedish County Councils. I will come back with more details after that lecture.

These discussions are very important to me since they are part of the project I run in my LIF-assignment. The project is the “action item 7.2″ from the National Pharmaceutical Strategy. I described this in the blog post from Nov 29:

“The National Pharmaceutical Strategy, and especially the two first action items identified within the scope of intervention area number 7 “Reduce effects on the environment by pharmaceuticals, locally and globally”:
7.1. Investigate if the environmental aspects should be considered when decisions on subsidy for a pharmaceutical are decided (Lead: Ministry of Health and Social Affairs): Review of possibilities to – within the context of the national reimbursement system - increasingly take environmental considerations.
7.2. Encourage voluntary control of emissions from pharmaceutical factories (Lead: LIF): Introduction of a voluntary environmental labeling of pharmaceutical products.
I will be the project manager for action item 7.2 and will hopefully be able to connect 7.2 strongly with action item 7.1 which is to be managed by Sofia Wallström in her review. I think it is very important, and it feels reasonable,  that society presents some form of economic incentives if industry is supposed to “volontary implement a system and an assessment model”…”

LIF, Green Public Procurement and follow-ups

Kategorier: Loggboken, Miljö, Socialt ansvar

As I have mentioned earlier here at the blog (see blog post from Oct 19 and from Nov 29), I start working part-time at the LIF Office today. And perhaps I should take it as “a good sign” that an issue I have worked upon for several years (both within Pfizer and in LIF’s environmental committee), namely green criteria in the tender business process, was highlighted in NyTeknik yesterday. The article shows great progress in the willingness from Swedish County Councils to start evaluate, and follow-up, green criteria. As you may know if you have read my blog post on tenders and public procurement previously (see for instance the blog posts from Sept 8, and May 26), I regard follow-ups as extremely critical for the process to work satisfactory:

Quote from blog post May 26: “And I restated LIF’s position: We welcome requirements, if they are fair, reasonable and in line with the public procurement regulations, e.g. LOU (Lagen om Offentlig Upphandling). LIF’s position also clearly states that requirements should be followed-up, otherwise “honest and serious” companies may suffer compared with “cheaters”.

Green criteria in the public procurement of pharmaceuticals have been developed by the Swedish Environmental Management Council (MSR) in collaboration with all relevant stakeholders in the sector. Those criteria, and all good discussions leading forward to the development of the criteria, will be very valuable during 2012 when green economic incentives and green criteria within the framework of the pricing and reimbursement system are being discussed. One of my main tasks working at the LIF Office during 2012 will be to connect with Sofia Wallström in her review and to establish a model of green criteria and evaluation on which green economic incentives could be based. My task here is the work related to action item 7.2 in the National Pharmaceutical Strategy, and Sofia Wallström’s task is the one described in action item 7.1:

7.1. Investigate if the environmental aspects should be considered when decisions on subsidy for a pharmaceutical are decided (Lead: Ministry of Health and Social Affairs): Review of possibilities to – within the context of the national reimbursement system - increasingly take environmental considerations.
7.2. Encourage voluntary control of emissions from pharmaceutical factories (Lead: LIF): Introduction of a voluntary environmental labeling of pharmaceutical products.

I am looking forward to an interesting year 2012!