The Antimicrobial Resistance Benchmark 2020 scrutinizes drug manufacturer’s environmental performance and calls for greater transparency

In January, the AMR Industry Alliance released their report on how the progress of their member industries on how to combat the global challenge with AMR. With regards to commitments to minimize risks with antibiotic pollution from manufacturing sites, the Alliance report that over 80% of participating companies’ antibiotics manufacturing facilities meet or partially meet the framework’s requirements and have shared these with more than 400 suppliers.

Representing another independent angle on the same challenge, the Access to Medicines Foundation released their report yesterday on how major pharmaceutical companies address the global challenge of AMR. In line with the AMR industry alliance report, the Benchmark confirm that most of the 17 scrutinized companies have an environmental strategy to minimize AMR, and they also set safe discharge limits for antibiotics. At the same time, none of the 17 companies publishes actual antibiotic discharge levels, none discloses their suppliers of active ingredients and none discloses which waste-treatment plants they are using.