Seminar in Hyderabad organised by GCF in collaboration with DoP, TSPCB and BDMA
A two-day industrial seminar and exhibition on Green Chemistry & Green Engineering for pharma API industry was recently held in Hyderabad. The seminar was organised by Green ChemisTree Foundation (GCF), in collaboration with Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP), Govt of India; Telangana State Pollution Control Board (TSPCB); and Bulk Drugs Manufacturers Association (BDMA).
The seminar was supported by industry partners, like Excel Industries, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, Newreka Green Synth Technologies, Novozymes, S-AMIT Specialty Chemicals, ROCHEM, Laurus Laboratories, NATCO Pharma, Indian Chemical Council and Express Pharma as media partner.
The seminar was attended by over 100 R&D, plant, operations and EHS personnel from more than 50 pharma API and its intermediate manufacturing companies from across India. They were a mix of MNCs (20 per cent), large companies (30 per cent) and SME categories (50 per cent).
Welcome addresses were made by dignitaries such as Jayanth Tagore, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Synthokem Labs and President BDMA; Dr Raveendhar, Senior Environmental Scientist, Telangana State Pollution Control Board; Dr Vilas Dahanukar, VP, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories and Nitesh Mehta, Founder Director, Newreka Green Synth Technologies’ and Green ChemisTree Foundation.
The dignitaries emphasised on the importance of pollution prevention at source and urged the industry audience to go beyond awareness and work towards green chemistry implementation and its integration into current API and intermediate manufacturing practices.
Dr (Prof) AV Rama Rao, Managing Director and Chairman, AVRA Labs gave the keynote address. Rao kept his audience engrossed with relevant anecdotes and experiences of industrial case-studies.
An implementation-driven talk was given by Suhas Jawlekar, one of the best Process Engineers of DRL. He shared DRL’s success case-studies, and suggested methodical and adept approaches for integrating ‘Green Engineering’ practices in pharma API industry.
Prof B Bhanage, Head of Chemistry Department, Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT), shared his expertise on the ‘Relevance of 12 Principles of Green Chemistry in the Pharma API manufacturing.’ Bhanage’s presentation was a comprehensive consolidation of successful pharma. focused case-studies vis-à-vis the 12 principles of green chemistry as reflected in each of the case-studies.
The first day of the seminar concluded after a panel discussion on ‘Barriers & Potential Strategies to Implement Green Chemistry in Pharma API Industry. The discussion was moderated by Tagore. Key stakeholders took part in the panel discussion. They included Dr Rashmi Naidu, Director (Technical Services), SSS-Europe (expert on Regulations and National Chemical Policies); Dr JS Yadav, Former Director, CSIR-IICT, Hyderabad (representing Academia & Research); Dr Rakeshwar Bandichhor, Associate Director- R&D IPDO, Hyderabad (representing Industry); Dr Raveendhar, senior representative from Telangana State Pollution Control Board; Dr Dinesh Nair, Regional Manager, Novozymes South Asia and Nitesh Mehta, Founder Director, Newreka Green Synth Technologies’ (representing Solution Providers).
Day-two of the seminar saw a session on ‘Tools & Strategies’ to implement green chemistry and green engineering in the pharma API industry. Dr Dhileep Krishnamurthy, Vice President & Global Head R&D-API- Pharma Solutions and Dr MG (Deepak) Palekar, Head & Strategy, STEP were the speakers. Krishnamurthy highlighted on the tools for incorporating ‘green chemistry by design’ at source during the route selection stage, while Palekar emphasised on tools and technologies for integrating green chemistry and green engineering in the production process stages.
Day two of the seminar was dedicated to introducing emerging tools and technologies as potential solutions for implementing green chemistry and/ or engineering practices in pharma API manufacturing.
EP News Bureau – Mumbai