The Sustainable Medicines Partnership launches

As one of 40 founding members, Datapharm is delighted to announce the Sustainable Medicines Partnership (SMP) has now officially launched.

Through the collaboration our purpose is to reduce medicines wastage and in turn reduce healthcare emissions. Crucially, the SMP is launching a 4-year programme which will bring science-based, scalable solutions to tackle their environmental impact.

In England alone, it is estimated that up to £300 million of medicines are wasted each year and that half of this waste could be avoided. Helping to tackle this far-reaching issue, Datapharm has been working with Pharma to convert PILs into electronic product information Leaflets (ePIL), which are freely available to HCPs, carers, and patients via the emc website. This unique position, as well as insights into medicines information usage data, highlight why Datapharm will be valuable in supporting the Digitising Medicines Information Project.

At the launch of the partnership, SMP Director and Yewmaker CEO, Nazneen Rahman said: “The SMP is a positive step forward for sustainability in Healthcare and Pharma. Following the Covid-19 pandemic, we’ve seen an acceleration of digitising processes and information and enabling patient-centred medicines information to be provided as standard is a natural evolution that will be good for patients and the planet. Datapharm brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in this area and working together with them puts us in a great position for building a sustainable future for medicines. ”

Nat Knight, Director at Datapharm commented:

“For many years, Datapharm has been passionately working to offer an equivalent alternative to printed patient information leaflets. With over 145 million views every year, Datapharm’s emc website enhances accessibility and usability of medical information, and is a proven alternative to paper leaflets, with a much smaller carbon footprint. This aligns us to what the SMP is looking to achieve, and we look forward to supporting the SMP by providing high-level insight via emc analytics.”

During Founder’s Week, we will discover more details of the SMP’s other projects, as well as some key findings and insightful content released on the SMP website. You can keep in the loop with Founders Week by following Datapharm and the SMP on LinkedIn, as well as the relevant Twitter hashtag, #sustainablemedicines.

About SMP:

The Sustainable Medicines Partnership (SMP) is a not-for-profit, multi-stakeholder, action collaborative of 40 organisations. SMP is executing a four year programme to build science-based, scalable, sustainable solutions to reduce the waste of medicines and the waste from medicines.

About Datapharm:

Datapharm provides accurate medicines information to all patients and healthcare professionals in the UK. It was formed in 1977 to publish information on licensed products on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry, and today runs emc (electronic medicines compendium), the UK’s most comprehensive, trusted and accessible source of information on medicines. It works in partnership with a wide range of organizations including the NHS, the MHRA, EMA and DHSC.