Sustainability Challenges in Peptide Synthesis and Purification: From R&D to Production

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in therapeutic peptides within the pharmaceutical industry with more than 50 peptide drugs on the market, approximately 170 in clinical trials, and >200 in preclinical development. However, the current state of the art in peptide synthesis involves primarily legacy technologies with use of large amounts of highly hazardous reagents and solvents and little focus on green chemistry and engineering. In 2016, the ACS Green Chemistry Institute Pharmaceutical Roundtable identified development of greener processes for peptide API as a critical unmet need, and as a result, a new Roundtable team formed to address this important area. The initial focus of this new team is to highlight best practices in peptide synthesis and encourage much needed innovations. In this Perspective, we aim to summarize the current challenges of peptide synthesis and purification in terms of sustainability, highlight possible solutions, and encourage synergies between academia, the pharmaceutical industry, and contract research organizations/contract manufacturing organizations.