The future of oral drug delivery must be sustainable

Pharmaceuticals transform disease from a life-limiting burden into a manageable, preventable or curable condition. They enable modern healthcare, longer lifespans, and functional societies. As the global demand for pharmaceuticals continues to grow rapidly – with projected consumption reaching 3.8 trillion defined daily doses per year by 2028 – so too does their environmental footprint. Today, healthcare accounts for around 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and without intervention, the pharmaceutical sector alone could reach 1.2 gigatons of CO₂ by 2030.

Oral drug products are the preferred route of administration, and Evonik has been at the forefront of oral excipient innovation for more than 70 years. In this article, we discuss our approach to making our oral drug delivery business more sustainable, focusing on three key pillars: ambitious targets, data-driven decision-making, and excipient innovation. 

Evonik’s Health Care business has set clear, measurable sustainability targets that encompass Scope, 1, 2 and 3 emissions, as well as resource efficiency. These targets align with our broader company goals.

This commitment is closely aligned with emerging Benign by Design principles, which aim to integrate sustainability into pharmaceutical development from the earliest stages. One of the most important, and often underestimated, realities is that more than 80% of a drug product’s environmental impact is determined during the design phase, from API synthesis and excipient selection to formulation and manufacturing decisions.

As sustainability expectations continue to evolve, designing medicines with their full lifecycle in mind will become increasingly important. Achieving this requires robust data, enabling informed decisions that balance environmental performance with the industry's fundamental mission of delivering safe, effective, and accessible medicines.

Sustainability is increasingly becoming data driven. At Evonik, we are systematically expanding Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) across our portfolio to provide transparent sustainability data, identify environmental hotspots, and drive continuous improvements in our processes.

This approach helps avoid decisions based on assumptions alone. For example, recent studies have shown that EUDRAGIT® grades have comparatively low environmental impacts in several assessed categories, including blue water consumption and carbon footprint, despite their fossil-based origin. This highlights the importance of lifecycle-based assessments and data-driven decision-making when evaluating sustainability.

Recently, LCA conducted using audited methodologies and in alignment with Together for Sustainability (TfS) guidelines, have demonstrated a consistent reduction in the carbon footprint of EUDRAGIT® polymers following the commissioning of a new spray dryer integrated into our production network and the qualification of bio-based raw materials.

These results underline the value of science-based assessments in quantifying the impact of process and sourcing improvements, enabling us to translate sustainability initiatives into measurable environmental benefits.

At Evonik, we are not waiting for these regulations to arrive – we are developing new polymers that are biodegradable while delivering the performance our customers expect, whether that’s for modified release or solubility enhancement. Early studies have shown that our new polymers perform as well as established excipients, enabling a seamless transition to more sustainable alternatives.

The need for more sustainable pharmaceutical manufacturing is both a challenge and an opportunity. We believe that companies that recognize this challenge, set targets, use a data-driven approach to drive their decisions and proactively integrate sustainability into their product design can mitigate regulatory risks, avoid costly reformulations and gain a competitive advantage.

1. Evonik. “Evonik provides customers with life cycle assessment data for selected EUDRAGIT® polymers.” 2026. Life cycle assessment data for selected EUDRAGIT® polymers.
2. Evonik. “Evonik develops new biodegradable excipients for oral drug delivery.” 2026. New biodegradable excipients for oral drug delivery.
3. Global Carbon Project. “Fossil fuel CO₂ emissions hit record high in 2025.” Global Carbon Budget.
4. World Health Organization. “Up to 5% of climate emissions come from healthcare.” 2025. WHO.
5. Health Care Without Harm. “Health care climate footprint report.” Health Care Without Harm.
6. ForTomorrow. “How much CO₂ does a tree absorb per year?” ForTomorrow.