We are pleased to announce that Rob Williams, PSCI Chair and Senior Director of Sustainable Procurement at AstraZeneca, will be speaking at CDMO Live 2025 in Rotterdam on Thursday 8 May. Rob will be joined by Martin Chilcott, Founder of Manufacture 2030, for two key sessions that will dive into the evolving role of sustainability in the pharma sector and its impact on contract manufacturing.

CDMO Live 2025 brings together leaders in the contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) space to discuss the latest trends, challenges, and innovations shaping the future of biopharma manufacturing.

Key sessions featuring Rob Williams:

• The State of Sustainability in Pharma (10:00 - 10:20)
  Rob Williams and Martin Chilcott will explore how the pharmaceutical industry is responding to the climate crisis, highlighting how PSCI members and the wider sector are addressing environmental impacts across complex, energy-intensive value chains and making progress towards ambitious decarbonization goals.

• Sustainability in Action: Turning ESG into Reality (13:30 - 15:00)
  This session will explore how the pharmaceutical industry can translate sustainability and ESG goals into actionable strategies. Robert Williams will host an exclusive Outsourcing Excellence Roundtable focused on turning ESG commitments into reality, using the PSCI Materiality Index as a framework for implementation.

Don’t miss the opportunity to hear Rob Williams’ insights alongside other thought leaders in the industry. Register now for CDMO Live 2025 and be part of the conversation shaping the future of biopharma manufacturing.

Register your attendance via CDMOLive.com

The PSCI presents its report on the use of Horseshoe Crab Blood for Endotoxin Testing in the Pharmaceutical Industry. The report provides insights into the context and complexities behind its use, pathways for better practices in the industry, an insight into the PSCI member companies’ use and next steps both the PSCI and others working in this ecosystem can take going forward.

The PSCI have been engaged on the topic of Horseshoe Crab Blood since 2023. Following the development of its position paper and convening through the working group. The PSCI has been discussing and exploring better pathways for better practices in the pharmaceutical industry and this report encouraging companies to minimize its use and seek alternatives for endotoxin testing in their supply chains.

Pharmaceutical companies use horseshoe crab blood to test medicines and vaccines for safety. The blood is a bright blue colour and has a special quality that makes it incredibly important to human health – it coagulates when exposed to bacterial endotoxins, which can cause sickness or even death in humans.

The impact of the amebocyte collection process on the crabs, and what should be done about it, is contested. The main challenges and complexities include the endangered Asian horseshoe crab, protection of the Atlantic horseshoe crab population, ecological concern over interdependencies and contested data of mortality rate from amebocyte collection.

While the demand for endotoxin testing continues to increase globally with no indication of consumption decline, the availability of synthetic alternatives is also growing in availability and popularity driven in part by ethical and environmental concerns about pharmaceutical supply chains. Challenges vary regionally in terms of regulation, environmental impact, cost and accessibility.

A survey amongst PSCI members was conducted intending to take the pulse of member companies which carry out or commission endotoxin tests, establishing their corporate policies and plans for TAL and LAL usage, as well as their current practices. Going forward, it is imperative to realize that the pharmaceutical industry must come together to collaborate on opportunities in this area.

This project was funded through the projects workstream. Following report publication, the working group aims to publish further capability building resources to support good practices amongst PSCI members. While members are progressing on developing positions on the reduction or elimination of TAL and LAL in their supply chains, only few are be planning for the resilience of its supply.

The PSCI would like to extend a big thank you to Jay Bolden and Shah Shaid, members of the Horseshoe Crab Blood Working Group, the PSCI member companies that responded to the survey and all other contributors for the development of this year’s report.

Sustainable sourcing runs across the pillars of the PSCI Principles and enables companies to build responsible supply chains. In that spirit, PSCI members have been working over the last year to produce an approach that sets the foundations of sustainable sourcing and is consistent with the PSCI Maturity Models. This work focused on two raw materials of importance to the pharmaceutical supply chain: lactose and palm oil. Each with its own challenges, these two raw materials were selected to test the approach developed, and will be the first of more to come.

The PSCI sustainable sourcing supplier pathways offer a best practice approach for members and suppliers, with guidance and tools to aid the implementation. By providing this common best practice approach, the PSCI aims to improve the industry’s collective progress towards a more sustainable supply chain and address key issues for both commodities:

• For lactose - Carbon emissions, water use and pollution, animal welfare, labour rights, biodiversity impacts from feed growing, and traceability and governance
• For palm oil - Land use change, Biodiversity loss, and Human & labor rights

The documents were produced by a third party under the direction of a PSCI expert Topic Team and were based on a series of interviews with key stakeholders, as well as a review of the literature available and sustainability reporting frameworks covering the raw materials selected.

The PSCI welcomes our new Committee and Topic Team leaders who work to drive the PSCI’s activities in line with our vision for responsible pharmaceutical and healthcare supply chains.

New Committee Co-leads:

• Dorota Wiacek (Roche) - Audit Committee, succeeding Roy Agostini
• Wenjia Xu (Merck & Co.) - Capability Committee, following Daniel Rehm, who has transitioned to the PSCI Board as Treasurer
• Enric Bosch (Boehringer Ingelheim) - Projects Committee, taking over from David McCarthy

New Topic Team leads:

• Devin Carsdale (Bristol Myers Squibb) – Decarbonization, succeeding Lucy Pickett, who has transitioned to PSCI Vice Chair
• Vincent Mignone (Kenvue) – Environment, stepping into the role previously held by Lynnette Cartagena
• Pietro Butti (Roche) – Management Systems, following Aimee Pasquier
• Reinhold Maeck (Boehringer Ingelheim) – Pharmaceuticals in the Environment (PiE) & AMR, succeeding Vincent Parker

A sincere thank you to Roy Agostini, Daniel Rehm, David McCarthy, Lucy Pickett, Lynnette Cartagena, Aimee Pasquier, and Vincent Parker for their leadership and contributions, which have helped shape PSCI’s workstreams.

The PSCI congratulates our new appointees and looks forward to their contributions in driving progress across our Committees and Topic Teams.

The PSCI is pleased to announce updates to its Board leadership for 2025-2027.

Daniel Rehm: Treasurer for 2025-2027
Daniel Rehm takes on the Treasurer role alongside our 2023-2025 Treasurer Ranjana Ganguly, Global EHS Leader for Emerging Markets at Pfizer.

Daniel, Operation Manager EEM Global API at Elanco Animal Health Inc., has over 26 years of experience in process development, Health, Safety and Environment, and manufacturing. Daniel has been a dedicated PSCI member since 2016, leading the Process Safety Management (PSM) Topic Team and co-leading the Capability Committee. He also played a key role in launching Learnster, PSCI’s e-learning platform.

James Lee: Secretary for 2025-2027
James Lee, Sustainable Procurement Lead at Moderna, has been appointed Secretary of the PSCI Board. He will join Rincy Joseph, the Secretary for 2023-2025, in advancing PSCI’s governance.

James brings expertise in sustainability and supply chain management, having led Moderna’s Sustainable Procurement strategy and managed Responsible Sourcing programs at The Clorox Company. James has actively collaborated with PSCI peers to drive sustainability and foster collaboration across the industry.

The PSCI congratulates Daniel and James on their new roles and looks forward to continued progress under their leadership.

Thank you to outgoing Board Members
We would also like to extend our heartfelt thanks to outgoing Board members for their service:

Ingrid Vande Velde completes her term as Past Chair, leaving a legacy of dedication and strategic insight.

Enric Bosch, who served as Treasurer from 2022 to 2024, has been instrumental in ensuring PSCI’s financial sustainability and supporting the organization’s growth. Enric will continue his involvement with PSCI as Co-Lead of the Projects Committee.

Aimee Pasquier, Secretary from 2022 to 2024, brought clarity and focus to PSCI’s governance, playing a key role in supporting the Board and its initiatives.

Schneider Electric, the leader in the digital transformation of energy management and automation, announced continued progress toward decarbonization for the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors. Energize, a collaborative partnership among the world’s leading pharmaceutical and healthcare companies and their suppliers, celebrates the second PPA cohort to procure renewable electricity together, following the first cohort announced in fall 2024. This multi-buyer PPA was signed with developer X-ELIO, and the energy sourced from their Lorca Solar Project is expected to be operational by early 2026.

Energize sponsors, Haleon and GSK, and industry suppliers, Gilead Sciences and Thermo Fisher Scientific, have collaborated to execute an aggregated purchase of 245 GWh of renewable energy per year for a 10-year term. This represents an estimated 41,7481 metric tons CO2 avoided per year, or the equivalent of 74,8782 Spanish households’ average annual electricity consumption. Thermo Fisher Scientific served as the lead negotiator supporting the group of companies during the PPA negotiations, which led to a successful combined investment in this long-term supply of renewable electricity.

The largest estimated emissions driver for the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector is the supply chain, which accounts for over 50% of emissions. Twenty-four leading pharmaceutical and healthcare companies sponsor the Energize program, managed by Schneider Electric, to provide renewable electricity education and procurement support at no cost for their suppliers. This support empowers suppliers to make tangible strides toward achieving decarbonization goals.

Recently, Energize celebrated the first multi-buyer PPA for 563.7 GWh of renewable electricity per year for a 10-year term. The success of this industry-wide initiative has proven successful, as evidenced by the progress shown through multiple PPA cohorts investing in a long-term supply of renewable electricity.

About Energize

The Energize program is a supply chain renewables initiative designed and delivered by Schneider Electric Sustainability Business and endorsed by the PSCI.

To learn more, please contact energize@se.com. Read the full press release here.