Students work with Pfizer on green chemistry initiative

June 11, 2008

Rowan University (Glassboro, N.J.) chemical engineering majors Anthony Furiato and Timothy Moroz may help make a drug that eases the pain of arthritis sufferers gentler on the environment.

Moroz, 22, of Manchester, and Furiato, 22, of Shrewsbury, have been working with Pfizer, Inc. to improve the environmental profile of the manufacturing process for the active ingredient in the top-selling arthritis pain medication Celebrex® (celecoxib).

Working with scientists and engineers from Pfizer's Global Manufacturing Division headquarters in New York City; its Global Engineering group in Peapack, N.J.; and its manufacturing site in Barceloneta, Puerto Rico, Moroz and Furiato have been evaluating alternative approaches for solvent recovery. The objective is to reduce the net quantity of solvent waste from the manufacturing process. The Rowan team has been working with several Pfizer personnel, including Dr. Daniel R. Pilipauskas (director/team leader, Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient Development Team), Frank J. Urbanski (director, Engineering Technology), Greg Hounsell (senior manager, Process Engineering) and Jorge Belgodere (manager/team leader, Manufacturing).

The project is one of several Rowan engineering clinic projects in which students are exploring green manufacturing strategies for pharmaceutical companies in the region. Started with funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2005, the Rowan "green" partnerships are seeking to improve process efficiency through green engineering design. Pfizer is sponsoring this clinic project through its Green Chemistry initiative. Drs. Mariano Savelski and C. Stewart Slater, of Rowan University, are advisors of the student clinic team.

The team presented its mid-term results in January to Pfizer management in New York City.

"In order for the study to have significance, it was necessary to incorporate as much depth and information as possible in the models," Moroz said. "The best part of the project was the interaction and reception to our ideas from the engineers at Pfizer. It was exciting to know that our work may positively impact Pfizer and the environment."

"Student work to date has been quite impressive. Their ideas for various processes are beneficial to us as we explore alternative methods for waste minimization to improve the environmental footprint of the process and make the operation more economical," said Pfizer's Hounsell.

Urbanski added, "In addition to providing the students an opportunity to apply their newly acquired engineering skill-base to a very real situation, I suspect the project also gave the students some perspective on the unique challenges faced by engineers in the pharmaceutical industry that will be of value to them as they begin their professional careers."

"Working with the Rowan team, we have been able to explore many options and get to potential solutions quickly. Given that we are engaged with many such projects around the world, working with Rowan has been a valuable experience," Pilipauskas said.

"The best part about this project as knowing that our final proposals, in the end, would be part of a greater picture of reducing manufacturing costs, which helps the consumer," Furiato said. "The culmination of my four years spent at Rowan was this project. All of the engineering skills I was taught were utilized, from computer modeling of extraction units to intense hand calculations of distillation columns. The final design product is something to be proud of."

Moroz and Furiato were in frequent contact with engineers at Pfizer to exchange ideas and solicit help with their project.

They used computer simulations to predict the performance of their proposed solvent recovery operating schemes. Some of the separation methods the team considered are distillation, extraction, membrane pervaporation and molecular sieve adsorption. They also used a computer model to show how recovering the solvent improves the environmental footprint of the process and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

The team will present its work at the 12th Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference in Washington, D.C., this month.

As for the future, Pfizer and Rowan project coordinators are discussing how to capitalize on this year's success in further developing their partnership. Furiato, who graduated in May this year, will attend medical school at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in Bradenton, Fla. Moroz, who also graduated in May, recently acquired a job as a process engineer with Foster Wheeler-a global engineering and construction contractor and power equipment supplier located in Clinton.


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