Widespread contamination from pharmaceuticals (synthetic or natural chemicals found in prescription medicines, over-the-counter therapeutic drugs & veterinary drugs) that are finding their way into the drinking water supply, is posing serious threats to public health. Advances in analytical technology and instrumentation have been a key factor in increased detection of pharmaceuticals. Their presence in water, even at low concentrations, has raised concerns in the EU among drinking water regulators, governments, water suppliers and the public regarding their potential risks both to the environment and to human health.
Pharmaceutical compounds such as hormones and endocrine disrupters are already responsible of major health problems. Studies show them being strongly connected to the phenomenon of increased male infertility. Peer-reviewed studies show strong connection of many of the pharmaceuticals connected to severe effect on wild-life such as fish infertility, neurological damage on birdlife and unnatural behaviour in aquatic life.
Additional concern is lifted for the development of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotics entering the environment even at sub levels of therapeutic concentrations show development of resistance in microorganisms. Being one of the main challenges in the world it is of great importance to prevent antibiotics to enter the environment.
Current wastewater treatment methods do not degrade many of the pharmaceutical contaminants, and may even generate more toxic by-products. The current methods also have high operative cost, preventing the uptake of solutions on the market. Pharem Biotech offer a solution PFS/DePharm (Pharem Filtration System) based on new enzyme based technology. The technology offer equal removal rate to the best alternatives on the market but with lower installation and operative cost at the same time as it do not affect working environment, a common problem with alternative technology.
The aim of this project was to validate the commercial & economic feasibility of our solution, map the stakeholder environments, investigate means to influence the stakeholders and select trial case partners from several countries.
