NEWS OF THE W EEK
CALIFORNIA CHEMICALS POLICY REPORT: State should adopt incentives, regulations to stimulate green chemistry economy
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ALIFORNIA NEEDS to overhaul its regulation
of commercial substances and foster a sustainable chemicals sector, says a report released last week by University of California researchers. The state should take this action because diseases attributed to chemical exposure among children and workers cost insurers, businesses, and families in California some $2.6 billion each year in direct and indirect expenses, the report says. The report recommends that chemical manufacturers disclose hazard information on their products as a condition of use or sale in California. This will allow businesses, consumers, and public agencies to choose among competing products for “viable alternatives” that provide the greatest protection of human health and the environment, it says. The report calls for the state to develop technical criteria that will define attributes of a chemical or industrial process that makes it a safer alternative. Chemical makers should provide data on product sales, volume, and distribution; industrial and consumer uses; environmental releases; and disposal practices, the report continues. This information would allow state regulators to estimate the potential for human exposure to commercial substances. The report also recommends that the state categorize commercial chemicals according to their relative hazards. California regulators would then focus their
attention on substances of greatest concern to the health NUMBERS SNAPSHOT California spends billions of dollars each of vulnerable populations year in health care costs due to chemical including pregnant women, exposures. These figures are for 2004. children, and workers. In addition, the report calls 208,000 new cases of chronic disease for state-funded research on attributable to workplace chemical green chemistry and for public exposures. agencies and universities to 4,400 premature deaths from disease provide technical assistance. attributable to workplace chemical It also recommends that exposures. California offer financial in$1.4 billion in direct and indirect costs of centives to industry. These workplace diseases and deaths attributable include tax credits for comto chemical exposures. panies with health and envi$1.2 billion in direct and indirect costs ronmental performance that of childhood diseases attributable to goes beyond standard industry chemical exposures. practice, low-interest loans for SOURCE: University of California investment in green technologies, and a state procurement policy favoring preferred chemicals and products. John R. Ulrich, executive director of the Chemical Industry Council of California, says chemical companies in the state support development and advancement of green technologies. But providing all the data called for in the report for all commercial substances at the same time would be “an impossible task,” he says. Richard A. Denison, senior scientist for Environmental Defense, an activist group, says the recommendations in the report are novel because they are designed to empower players other than the state government—specifically industry and consumers—to address chemical risks and to choose safer alternatives. The California Environmental Protection Agency commissioned the UC Berkeley and UCLA Centers for Occupational & Environmental Health to prepare the report. The document is available at www.coeh.ucla .edu/greenchemistry.htm.—CHERYL HOGUE
FINE CHEMICALS Saltigo, SAFC gear up for pharma on the West Coast Saltigo, the custom chemicals business of Germany’s Lanxess, is establishing its first U.S. laboratories for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) with the acquisition of Icos’ Redmond, Wash., facility. Saltigo will use the site for pharmaceutical chemical research and to manufacture APIs for clinical trials up to and including Phase IIa, which focuses on assessing dosage requirements. As many as 25 employees will initially be based there, the firm says. Icos was acquired by Eli Lilly & Co. in 2006. In addition to divesting the Redmond site, Icos recently sold its biologics development and manufacturing opera-
tion in Bothell, Wash., to the firm CMC Biopharmaceuticals. A Saltigo official says his firm specifically targeted the West Coast because of the prevalence of biopharmaceutical start-ups there. The German company has, for example, conducted contract manufacturing for Santa Clara, Calif.based Ilypsa, which was purchased last year by Amgen. Meanwhile, Sigma-Aldrich’s SAFC fine chemicals business has announced plans for a $12 million expansion of its new biologics facility in Carlsbad, Calif. The company will add two viral product manufacturing suites.
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Due to be complete in the second half of 2009, the project will expand the 44,000-sq-ft site by 8,000 sq ft. The project will enable production of 100-L batches in stirred-tank bioreactors and 1,000-L batches in disposable reactors. SAFC gained the Carlsbad facility with its acquisition last year of Molecular Medicine Bioservices, which produces viral vaccines and gene therapies. “This expansion will increase our Carlsbad site capabilities from clinicalscale to commercial-scale manufacturing,” says David Feldker, SAFC Pharma’s vice president of marketing and U.S. operations.—RICK MULLIN
