The environmental impact of weight-loss drugs

Novo Nordisk is spending 6 billion in Kalundborg, Denmark, to expand the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), including peptides used in weight-loss and antidiabetic drugs. The Danish company's rival, Eli Lilly and Company, recently built a peptide synthesis plant in Kinsale, Ireland. Novo Nordisk's Wegovy and Lilly's Zepbound aren't just changing how the public thinks about weight loss. These peptide-based drugs and others expected to follow are spurring big changes in pharmaceutical chemical manufacturing. The two companies, as well as third-party manufacturers, are building huge new facilities to make the ingredients needed for these drugs. But synthesizing peptides is notoriously inefficient, and with the investments come questions about the environmental cost of making the popular weight-loss and antidiabetic drugs. The active substances in Wegovy and Zepbound are the 31-amino-acid-long semaglutide and the 39-amino-acid-long tirzepatide, respectively. Both peptides mimic the natural body hormone glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1). The drugs