Pharmaceuticals in the environment

Novartis is committed to minimizing the environmental impact of its products. Pharmaceuticals entering the aquatic environment are an inevitable consequence of science-based healthcare and our business activity. As scientific knowledge evolves in this field, we regularly benchmark our activities, and also actively support academia, regulators and other stakeholders in developing more efficient risk-management practices.

The levels of active pharmaceutical ingredients found in the aquatic environment as a result of Novartis activities are below those approved as safe by medical regulatory agencies, according to current knowledge, and Novartis believes that such levels do not present a health risk for humans. Novartis strives to minimize, to the greatest extent possible, discharges of active pharmaceutical ingredients into wastewater, and has banned landfilling of any pharmaceutical waste. Such waste is incinerated in approved, state-of-the-art facilities.

Novartis works with third parties to ensure that they are guided by this policy in their waste minimization activities. Novartis has also supported research by a group of German wastewater engineers, making available a selection of in-market medicines, as well as innovative compounds still in development. The aim of this pioneering effort is to demonstrate that affordable, reliable wastewater technology works in practice – and helps remove existing, as well as new, pharmaceuticals from wastewater before they reach the aquatic environment.

Please read the Novartis position on Pharmaceuticals in the Environment.

Performance data and target achievement on PiE can be found here:
Emissions into water