Purpose

The aim is to conduct a life cycle assessment of the analgesic Eudorlin® Extra to identify environmental hotspots along its life cycle, i.e. the manufacturing of the active pharmaceutical ingredient, the galenic formulation, packaging, distribution, use and end-of-life. This publication is one of only few LCA studies that consider all life cycle stages of a pharmaceutical.

Methods

The functional unit is the treatment of an adult in Germany with the purpose of pain relief for 4 days, the reference flow is one package Eudorlin® Extra (10 tablets with 400 mg ibuprofen per tablet). Primary data is provided by the manufacturing companies for the production stage. The impact assessment is conducted for impact categories that have been identified as germane for the sector. A contribution analysis is performed and relevant processes are evaluated by sensitivity analyses.

Results and discussion

The environmental profile is dominated by the production stage whereas the use and end-of-life are negligible. This seems to be plausible due to the high material usage during manufacturing, as opposed to the use stage where no additional inputs are required. However, methodological issues are identified which potentially affect the results such as the lack of characterization factors for the metabolites.

conclusion and outlook

The results are in alignment with existing studies which emphasize the environmental relevance of the production stage. Future research should focus on improving existing impact assessment methods, developing characterization factors for metabolites and publishing inventory data on substances that are frequently used in the pharmaceutical life cycle.

中文翻译：

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布洛芬镇痛药从无到有的生命周期评估

目的

目的是对止痛药Eudorlin®Extra进行生命周期评估，以发现其生命周期内的环境热点，即活性药物成分的生产，盖伦制剂，包装，分配，使用和寿命终止。该出版物是考虑药物生命周期各个阶段的仅有的少数LCA研究之一。

方法

功能单元是在德国治疗成人，目的是缓解疼痛4天，参考流程是Eudorlin®Extra一包（10片，每片含400毫克布洛芬）。制造公司为生产阶段提供主要数据。对已被确定为与该行业密切相关的影响类别进行影响评估。进行贡献分析，并通过敏感性分析评估相关过程。

结果和讨论

生产阶段主要控制环境，而使用寿命和使用寿命可忽略不计。这似乎是合理的，因为在制造过程中使用了大量的材料，而使用阶段则不需要额外的投入。但是，已确定了可能影响结果的方法学问题，例如缺少代谢物的表征因素。

结论与展望

该结果与强调生产阶段与环境相关的现有研究相吻合。未来的研究应集中在改进现有的影响评估方法，开发代谢物的表征因素以及发布有关药物生命周期中经常使用的物质的清单数据。