Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and technology organisation Honeywell are teaming up to develop sustainable next-generation respiratory inhalers.
The companies will work together to develop inhalers using the propellant HFO-1234ze, which has up to 99.9% less Global Warming Potential (GWP) than propellants currently used in respiratory medicines.
The announcement comes alongside AstraZeneca’s annual Sustainability Report in which the company has outlined the progress of its ‘Ambition Zero Carbon’ sustainability programme.
The report details that the companies will work together on the new inhalers with an aim of launching them by 2025.
Currently, pressurised metered-dose inhalers (pMDIs) use fluorinated gases (F-Gases) as a propellant which are powerful greenhouse gases and bring with them a higher global warming potential than carbon dioxide (CO2).
The European Union (EU) has adopted two legislative acts to reduce the effects of F-gases on the environment. Pharmaceutical companies are worried that without enough advancement in areas of respiratory devices, tighter regulation on F-gases could put products at risk if viable, sustainable alternatives are not developed.
In 2021, AstraZeneca released results from the first in-human Phase I trial of HFO-1234ze in pMDIs containing a medicine used to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The results were positive and highlighted that the pMDIs used with the HFO-1234ze propellant demonstrated similar safety, tolerability and systemic exposure of the active ingredients compared to its traditional inhalers. The medicine used in the trial was Breztri Aerosphere and AstraZeneca expects it to be the medicine to transition to this new pMDI platform.
Pascal Soriot, chief executive officer, AstraZeneca, said: "We are making great progress on our ambition to be zero carbon across our global operations by the end of 2025 and carbon negative across our entire value chain by 2030. Our collaboration with Honeywell demonstrates AstraZeneca’s commitment to advancing sustainable healthcare innovation, with the aim of improving outcomes for patients while reducing our environmental footprint.”
Darius Adamczyk, chairman and chief executive officer, Honeywell, said: “The work we are doing with AstraZeneca developing a respiratory inhaler, with a new near-zero Global Warming Potential propellant, is tremendously important for both the environment and patients with respiratory issues. Our goal is to reduce respiratory healthcare carbon emissions without restricting patient choice or risking improvement in health outcomes.”