Dedicated research

Excretion from patients is recognised as the major source of pharmaceuticals in the environment. The levels of residues detected in the environment are generally extremely low and are unlikely to pose a risk to human health. For example, the levels detected in drinking water are so low, it would mean that to ingest one single patient dose, someone would have to drink more water than is possible in a lifetime. However, whilst improving all the time, understanding of the potential for long-term effects in the environment, for example to aquatic life, requires further research.

Scientists at our dedicated environmental laboratory in Brixham, UK are currently concentrating on two key areas of research:  

• Improving our understanding of the processes leading to the breakdown and removal of pharmaceutical residues in sewage treatment plants and the wider environment.  This will improve our ability to predict concentrations in the environment and provide a better understanding of the environmental fate of pharmaceuticals.
• Improving the predictability of potential adverse environmental effects through the development of novel ecotoxicological test methodologies.  
  
  One specific area of interest is how we can utilise the large amount of pre-clinical data that is already produced as part of the regulatory submission for all new drugs.  This will ensure that appropriate test species and effect endpoints are considered within the environmental testing programme and in the longer term we hope this will lead to a reduction in the amount of animal testing required to support our environmental risk assessments.