Caiming Tang

Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China

In China, the contract research organization (CRO) corporations have witnessed a sharp increasing in both the magnitude and productivity. Many of these CRO companies are engaging in the pharmaceutical industry, focusing on the preclinical and clinical researches in drug discovery. The first procedure of the preclinical research is chemical synthesis, while the mainly business of the Chinese CROs is chemical synthesis.

In drug discovery industry, tremendous compounds are synthesized. While after screening, only a few can be approved as successful drugs. Many compounds are excluded in the preliminarily screening processes. Some of them are bioactive and some not. Actually, these compounds are unknown chemicals. We have no idea whether they are hazardous or not to the environment. We always have the consciousness that “the unknown danger is the most dangerous”. Accordingly, these compounds should be carefully evaluated in terms of their potential eco-toxicity before being released into the environment, especially for those possessing bioactivities. The waste produced by those CROs should be strictly scrutinized before recycling or discharging.

Recently, an increasingly environmental concern has been raised on the contamination caused by pharmaceuticals.¹ Since the pharmaceuticals and their metabolites can result in environmental contaminations and lead to potential healthy risks,² the byproducts and the unreacted compounds which possess the similar functional groups as the pharmaceuticals and their metabolites could contribute the similar adverse effect to the environment. Some byproducts and excluded compounds are probably much more hazardous compared with the approved pharmaceuticals, because those compounds would be excluded at the preliminary screening procedures due to their toxic properties. Although the amounts of these compounds are relatively limited, the increasing business of the Chinese CROs could increasingly produce these compounds, thus leading to environmental problem. Furthermore, we do not know how dangerous they are.