A UK-based consortium led by Exactmer, with strategic support from GSK, has secured more than £7 million ($8.9 million) in funding from Innovate UK and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to develop high-purity bio-based solvents for medicines manufacturing. The 36-month project aims to strengthen the UK’s position in sustainable pharmaceutical production and accelerate the scale-up of low-carbon solvent alternatives.
The consortium, established by ERM and Ayming, brings together technology providers, pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers to address emissions linked to solvent use in medicines manufacturing—one of the sector’s significant environmental challenges.
Solvents are essential to pharmaceutical production but remain a major contributor to Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions for medicines manufacturers. Replacing petroleum-derived solvents with bio-based alternatives offers a pathway to decarbonisation. However, producing solvents with the high purity and moisture control required for pharmaceutical use has remained energy- and cost-intensive, limiting wider adoption.
The consortium plans to overcome these barriers by deploying advanced membrane purification technologies to industrialise the production of cost-effective, low-emission bio-based solvents. The approach is expected to allow pharmaceutical manufacturers to integrate the new solvents without major changes to existing production infrastructure.
The project will validate these alternatives in medicines manufacturing for small molecules and oligonucleotides, while also working to reduce regulatory barriers and establish a reliable supply chain for pharmaceutical-grade bio-based solvents. The initiative targets lifecycle greenhouse gas reductions of at least 60% compared with conventional solvents and aims to enable global commercial-scale production by the early 2030s.
Consortium members include technology providers Exactmer, Queen Mary University London, Atmospheric AI and SOLVE Chemistry; solvent manufacturers OXCCU, Celtic Renewables and the University of Leeds; pharmaceutical companies GSK and Croda; life sciences company Cytiva; and translational research organisation CPI.
Andrew Livingston, CEO of Exactmer and Vice Principal for Research and Innovation at Queen Mary University London, said: “We are excited to be involved in this challenging new project which will enable wider use of bio-based solvents in the pharmaceutical production supply chain. It’s great to be part of this broad-based industry collaboration, and we look forward to driving the Government’s Industrial Strategy forward through life sciences manufacturing.”
