News - full story

PFIZER’S ARTHRITIS DRUG Celebrex is getting a green makeover thanks to some chemical engineering students at Rowan University in the US state of New Jersey.

A group of three final-year students have been working with Pfizer experts to reduce the amount of solvent used to manufacture celecoxib, the active ingredient in the blockbuster arthritis painkiller. Specifically, the students are evaluating different processes for solvent recovery to reduce the amount of solvent waste produced from the manufacturing process. The students say that they have developed several design strategies for recovery of the process solvent that could help Pfizer reduce waste and energy while driving down cost.

Greg Hounsell, senior manager for process engineering with Pfizer, calls the students’ work “quite impressive”, adding that it will help Pfizer find ways of reducing its environmental footprint. Frank J. Urbanski, Pfizer’s director of engineering technology, adds:  “In addition to providing the students an opportunity to apply their newly acquired engineering skill-base to a very real situation, I suspect the project also gave the students some perspective on the unique challenges faced by engineers in the pharmaceutical industry that will be of value to them as they begin their professional careers.”