Green Chemical Production For Meds

Righteous dudes – the DUDE CHEM management team – © DUDE CHEM

Efforts are being made to make the production of medicines more sustainable. Berlin-based DUDE CHEM aims to make chemical manufacturing in the pharmaceutical industry more cost-efficient as well as environmentally friendly. DUDE CHEM’s patented processes produce less waste and can reduce the CO2 emissions of drug development. DUDE CHEM doesn’t produce the chemicals itself but supplies pharmaceutical companies with the chemicals they need. The innovations are in removing the need for oil in aspects of production, replacing it with water, and also doing without the use of a metal catalyst. Because of confidentiality agreements, it is not known exactly who DUDE CHEM’s customers are, but apparently they include a pharmaceutical company, a chemical distributor, and a company that produces generic drugs. Through its new processes, DUDE CHEM hopes that in future more chemicals for medicine will be produced in Europe or the US, reducing reliance on India and China. “We need to make sure that we have a certain level of independence in critical areas. We don’t currently have that in health,” says founder and CEO Sonja Jost, one of the most famous chemistry entrepreneurs in Germany. Next to geo-political factors, industry stakeholders are beginning to take notice of the sustainability aspect of producing meds. The market is huge. Now DUDE CHEM has raised €6.5M, as sifted reports, with which the company hopes to expand from pharma chemical production into other chemical market segments too, such as food and cosmetics.