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NEW YORK, NEW YORK, 08.07. 2004 09:49
Company Uses Green Chemistry in Manufacturing Anticancer Drug
Presidential Award Recognizes Bristol-Myers Squibb's Commitment To Developing Environmentally Responsible Processes
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today awarded Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE: BMY) a Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award in recognition of its development and use of a more environmentally friendly way to manufacture its anticancer drug, TAXOL® (paclitaxel). With representatives from the White House and EPA in attendance, the award was presented in a ceremony in Washington, D.C. at the National Academy of Sciences. The Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award recognizes innovations in cleaner, cheaper and smarter chemistry.
The plant cell culture technology the company is using, a result of a commercial collaboration with Phyton Biotech Inc., has improved the sustainability of the paclitaxel supply (paclitaxel is the active ingredient in TAXOL®). It also reduces negative environmental impacts by producing less waste, using less energy and relying on fewer solvents than the previously used method. The technology also reduces the risk of occupational exposure.
The Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award program brings important recognition to outstanding chemical technologies that incorporate the principles of green chemistry into chemical design, manufacture and use, and that have been or can be utilized by industry in achieving pollution prevention goals. Nominations are judged by an independent panel of technical experts convened by the American Chemical Society. Bristol-Myers Squibb received one of five awards and was recognized in the alternative synthetic pathway category.
Bristol-Myers Squibb received the award for its project that developed a "green synthesis" for TAXOL® manufacture via plant cell culture and extraction. Paclitaxel was first identified and isolated from the bark of the Pacific yew tree more than 30 years ago under the auspices of the National Cancer Institute. Clinical trials in the 1980s demonstrated the effectiveness of paclitaxel in the treatment of ovarian cancer. However, the medical benefits of paclitaxel were coupled with environmental and supply challenges. Yew bark only contains about 0.0004 percent of paclitaxel and the isolation of the paclitaxel required the trees, which take 200 years to mature, to be stripped of their bark which killed them. The Pacific yew tree was also part of the habitat of the endangered spotted owl.
In 1991, Bristol-Myers Squibb began to develop a semisynthetic route to produce paclitaxel and to eliminate the need for yew bark. This new semisynthetic process was developed in the laboratory and scaled to manufacturing in only three years. This success was driven by the company's desire to avoid the destruction of the Pacific yew trees. The semisynthetic process used leaves and twigs harvested from the European yew, cultivated throughout Europe, which contains 10-deacetylbaccatin III (10-DAB). 10-DAB includes most of the structural complexity of the paclitaxel molecule. Despite the fact that it provided a renewable supply and did not impact the ecosystem of the endangered spotted owl, the process still posed environmental concerns. These included the significant amount of land utilized to grow the yew trees and the large amount of biomass waste, as well as the use of more than a dozen solvents along with 24 organic reagents. To address these concerns the company worked on a more sustainable solution using plant cell culture technology.
The result, a process using only plant cell cultures to ferment the active drug substance, has led to sustainability of the supply of paclitaxel, less waste and pollutants, and reduced workplace exposure to solvents and other processing hazards. More specifically, the process prevents more than 240 metric tons of biomass waste and 6.4 metric tons of hazardous waste from being generated annually. In addition, the plant cell culture process removes 10 specific solvents from the process. The simplified process steps have resulted in energy savings and reduced exposure to potent materials in the workplace. Additional advantages to the plant cell culture process are that paclitaxel is able to be fermented year round, the yield is not susceptible to the vagaries of weather, pests and diseases, maturity is not a factor, and there is minimal biomass waste from cell cultures.
Bristol-Myers Squibb is a global pharmaceutical and related health care products company whose mission is to extend and enhance human life.
Kontaktinformationen:
Steffanie Archbald, 609-252-6606, steffanie.archbald@bms.com
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