The report suggests that the drug industry’s need for high quality water (HQW) that complies with European Pharmacopeal requirements will continue to drive growth in advanced treatment systems sector.
Principal study author Karthikeyan Ravikumar, explained that: "the water and wastewater management market in the European pharmaceutical industry has exciting opportunities to offer particularly in the water treatment segment".
Ravikumar highlighted Southern and Eastern parts of the continent as regions likely to experience the biggest increase in demand as drugmakers continue to seek low cost production options in the current economic downturn.
Strict regulatory requirements
At present, water used in drug manufacture is divided into four categories under the European Pharmacopoeia's 2007 guidelines. These are: purified, which is prepared using ion exchange and distillation; highly purified, which must pass through reverse osmosis treatment and electro-deionisation; and distilled water for injection applications.
In order to comply with these guidelines major industry players like GE, Veolia and Siemens have made significant R&D investments to develop new, cheaper and more effective methods of processing.
While giants like those mentioned have grown to dominate the market, the drug industry’s ever growing demand for HQW for applications ranging from disinfection of production lines to methods used to control bacterial growth has allowed smaller specialist technology water treatment firms to thrive.
Two such companies are Canada’s Trojan, which has offices across Europe and UK based Hanovia. Both firms market UV-based water treatment technologies specifically designed for the pharmaceutical industry.