Key Highlights:
- AstraZeneca partners with Honeywell to build a new green inhaler.
- The next-gen inhaler will have 99.9% less Global Warming Potential compared to current models.
- AstraZeneca aims to reduce respiratory healthcare carbon emissions without restricting patient choice.
AstraZeneca is partnering with Honeywell to develop a next-gen respiratory inhaler that has 99.9% less Global Warming Potential as compared to the current models. AstraZeneca is working on mitigating its climate change caused by respiratory inhalers.
The standard inhaler models use medicines that are commonly offered through pressurized metered-dose inhalers that contain small quantities of a type of greenhouse gas, which acts as the propellant to deliver the medicine to the lungs.
First Trial delivers hopeful results
AstraZeneca recently confirmed that the first-in-human Phase I trial of HFO-1234ze in a pMDI containing budesonide, glycopyrronium, formoterol fumarate in healthy adults were positive. The results demonstrated similar safety, tolerability, and systemic exposure of the active ingredients in comparison to standard Breztri Aerosphere medicine.
AstraZeneca is expecting Breztri to be the first medicine to transition towards a new near-zero climate impact inhaler, and subject to regulatory approval.
AstraZeneca Annual Sustainability Report
The Chairman and CEO of Honeywell, Darius Adamczyk, commented on the next-gen respiratory models stating, “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.”
AstraZeneca also published their Sustainability Report that confirmed that the company is now sourcing the entirety of its imported electricity from renewable sources and has achieved a 59% reduction in its Scope 1 & 2 direct greenhouse gas emissions since 2015.
With these results, It is becoming one of the first seven companies globally to have its net-zero targets verified by the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) in line with Corporate Net Zero Standard.
