#33: How Can Life Sciences Balance Innovation and Biodiversity Preservation?

Mahaut de Villepin-Lambert: So, I would say several reasons why biodiversity is essential. Number one, the source of medicine by itself, because natural products, from plants, animals or micro-organisms have been the basic for many drugs.

Today, over more than 50% of modern pharmaceuticals are derived from, or inspired by compounds that are found in nature. For example, aspirin from willow barks or morphine from poppies or penicillin from mold.

The second one, I would say, is biomedical research, because biodiversity really enables comparative studies across species, and therefore it really helps scientists to understand human biology and disease mechanism if you have more biodiversity.

The third reason I would call out, why biodiversity is essential is because of the genetic resources in the biotechnology. Genetic diversity in microbes, plants and animals really provide a raw material for biotechnology application, such as developing vaccines or biotherapeutics or diagnostic. And CRISPR, which is a really revolutionary genetic editing tool, was derived from a bacterial immune system.

Why I think the impact on biodiversity loss is a problem for medical innovation? Reason number one would be shrinking the drug discovery pipeline, because extinction really reduces the pool, I would say, of bioactive compounds available for research and therefore potentially eliminating cures before they are even discovered.

The second reason is the increased vulnerability to pandemics. And I think we've all faced that over the past years, which is that biodiversity loss can alter host pathogen dynamics. And so, making what we call “zoonotic disease” really spill over more likely – and COVID-19 is a very good example of that.

Another reason I would call out is the loss of microbiome diversity. With modern agriculture and antibiotic practices that are really reducing soil and gut microbiome diversity, this could be linked to rising chronic diseases like allergies, obesity or autoimmune disorders.

Mahaut de Villepin-Lambert: Regarding the over-extraction of natural resources, obviously the first one that comes to our mind, even when it comes to life sciences and healthcare, is mining of raw material. Because as many other industries, they develop more and more smart, mobile and connected devices, which also require a stronger and rechargeable battery.

So, battery is also very present in medtech industry. Those batteries are made out of lithium and lithium mining often leads to water scarcity and habitat degradation, really in sensitive ecosystems.

A second aspect is the water consumption. The pharmaceutical industry is one of the major industrial consumers of water, both for manufacturing processes – so manufacturing the drugs, but also cleaning the equipment, the bioreactors or the equipment that they use to produce.

It's difficult to quantify exactly the global water consumption because it varies really from regulation across countries. But there's an estimation that the pharmaceutical sector uses millions of cubic meters of water per year globally. And just a single large manufacturing facility can use up to 10,000 to 20,000 square meters per day.

The uses of water in pharma usually are the cleaning process or manufacturing process. So more specifically for solvent and reagents in drug synthesis, for cleaning or sterilization of the equipment, for the cooling system or the boilers, but also in the formulation process when it comes to injectable drugs or syrup.

So, how does the industry deal with polluted water? Most of the large manufacturers operate what we call ETPs to treat waste water before discharging. And in Europe and North America, there are really very strict discharge limits and regular environmental audits. Some companies implement what we call ZLD systems that recycle and reuse all the water waste, leaving no discharge.

And many companies like Roche, Sanofi, AstraZeneca have published water stewardship goals, like optimizing their cooling system by a closed-loop water, improving heat recovery to reduce fresh intake as a second example, but also reusing cleaning water safely for subsequent cycles where it's possible.

Here in that space, pharma and medtech industries are taking very strong commitment to use reusable and renewable energy on their manufacturing plants. So, they are investing a lot in solar plants, clean NSO.

But the challenge is that they also need to transform the inside: yes, we need to use greener energy, but we need also to transform our manufacturing processes to make sure that they are more sustainable. 
 

Mahaut de Villepin-Lambert: I think the first aspect of what we can implement is eco-design and sustainable product innovation.

Typically, virtual product modeling helps to design drugs and devices with really minimal environmental impact. As an example, in the medtech industry, we can simulate a medical device disassembly, reuse potential and material recyclability before physical prototyping. And in the pharma, we can also model drug formulation that use fewer solvents, biodegradable excipients or lower environmental toxicity.

A second initiative we can take regarding circular practices would be green chemistry and process simulation. For that, we can simulate what we call synthetic pathways or bioprocesses or chemical reactions using green chemistry principles. We can find safer reagents, more efficient synthetic routes, or lower waste production methods.

And the last example would be closed-loop system modeling, where virtual twins typically help to simulate circular flows of materials, enabling planning for take-back, refurbishing or repurposing. In medtech, many companies have a plan for reprocessing surgical instruments, for example battery reuse or recycling of device components. And in pharma, we see more and more traction to simulate the return and the reuse of the packaging. In particular, when it comes to reusable transport containers for temperature sensitive biologics.

Green chemistry, so the aspect is that when you synthesize or produce a small molecule, you use a lot of reagents, external materials or components that come in your formulation. And it can be costly to produce or extract from the nature – those reagents. And the reagents themselves can also have an impact on the stability of the drug or on patient safety. So, it's important to better understand and anticipate how the reagents are going to play in the formulation. So, modeling those chemical reactions can have a strong impact.

Mahaut de Villepin-Lambert: I think challenge number one, obviously – compliance is, I think, one of the main challenges because switching to biodiversity-friendly alternatives may require an entire revalidation or delaying the market entry and obviously sometimes increasing the cost. Typically using biodegradable packaging material in a sterile device may require an entire new approval cycle to the FDA or the regulatory bodies like the FDA. And this is time and money that the pharma and medtech company is losing.

A second aspect regarding compliance is that obviously today biodiversity is an indirect priority for regulatory bodies at the moment. The priority number one and will always be quality and safety for the patient when it comes to drug approval.

Another aspect is the globalized and the complex supply chain. Today, in the life science and healthcare industry, they source biological materials, raw ingredients and minerals from very diverse regions. Often, the supply chain is quite fragmented and difficult to handle. And we've seen it during the COVID crisis: being able to manufacture the vaccine for the worldwide population was a challenge because of the supply chain disruption.

And therefore, tracing the impacts on ecosystems, deforestation, over-harvesting of medicinal plants is a challenge because there's no clear diversity monitoring standards today in the industry.

And the third challenge is the tension between the innovation speed and the ecological awareness. The pharma and medtech industry are really under intense pressure to innovate quickly especially during global health crises like the COVID-19 again, I'm mentioning this example several times, but it's been a real eye-opener for many of us.

And environmental safeguards like really sustainable sourcing or habitat assessments can be seen as slowing down the progress despite really the long-term benefits that the industry would take.

So, our solutions helped them to track, typically, in the space of medtech – when you need to submit a new market approval for device, you need to provide one element which is called the device master record that inside you need to detail precisely the requirements, the guidelines that are communicated by the regulatory bodies, what are the different requirements that your medical device is supposed to meet, what are the different tests that you have performed.

We help medtech companies structure the requirements in a proper way based on the regulations so that they perform the right tests, they take the right engineering and design decisions, they are able to track and save the different simulation results, and we help them to facilitate the submission to the FDA. So, this is typically an example of how our virtual twin technology and 3DEXPERIENCE platform help medical device companies to be compliant.

Narrator: Thank you, Mahaut, for joining us and shedding light on the intersection of healthcare innovation and biodiversity. Your insights are a powerful reminder that progress and preservation can go hand in hand. The virtual twin emerges not just as a solution but as a strategy that supports circular R&D, reduces reliance on raw materials, and helps navigate complex regulations.

Thank you for tuning in. We hope you found today's episode valuable. Curious how life sciences and healthcare companies are achieving bio-circular success? Download our ebook  to unlock actionable strategies powered by the virtual twin.

Disruptors Unleashed is produced by Dassault Systèmes. For more episodes, follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Deezer, or your nearest audio streaming platform. To learn more about Dassault Systèmes, visit us at 3ds.com.