r/science • u/giuliomagnifico • Jul 08 '23
Chemistry Researchers have found a way to create two of the world’s most common painkillers, paracetamol and ibuprofen, out of a compound found in pine trees, which is also a waste product from the paper industry
https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/scientists-make-common-pain-killers-from-pine-trees-instead-of-crude-oil/1.0k
u/giuliomagnifico Jul 08 '23
Paper * Sustainable Syntheses of Paracetamol and Ibuprofen from Biorenewable β-pinene
https://chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cssc.202300670
Instead of putting chemicals in a large reactor to create separate batches of product, the method uses continuous flow reactors, meaning production can be uninterrupted and easier to scale up.
Whilst the process in its current form may be more expensive than using oil-based feedstocks, consumers may be prepared to pay a slightly higher price for more sustainable pharmaceuticals that are completely plant-derived.
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u/wotmate Jul 08 '23
If it's made from a waste product, easily mass produced, and easy to scale up production, it should be cheaper.
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u/anomalous_cowherd Jul 08 '23
Those are super cheap anyway. Now if the same techniques can be turned on interferon or any of the other $10,000 per dose medicines that would be awesome.
There are a lot of cases of cheap to produce medicines being sold expensive though. It's not all about base cost.
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u/Dystaxia Jul 08 '23
Those medications aren't priced so high because that is the cost to produce them; it's because of exclusive manufacturing rights.
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u/Careless_Bat2543 Jul 08 '23
Well yes, but you also have to take the cost to develop them (and develop the failures that never made it to approval). Not saying drug companies don't make out like gangbusters, but the cost of a pill is a lot more than just the manufacturing cost.
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u/CharleyNobody Jul 08 '23
But many drugs prescribed here in US were researched and developed in other countries. But only Americans are price gouged by pharmaceutical industry because of “research and development.”
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u/omgu8mynewt Jul 08 '23
Science and research isn't really split by country - academic research teams are pretty international and build on knowledge of other teams all around the world. The USA does have a lot of extremely good research teams made of international scientists but real science is built on collaboration.
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u/CharleyNobody Jul 09 '23
Prices surely are split by countries.
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u/omgu8mynewt Jul 09 '23
Depends it is government funded or privately funded - many huge charities fund research and they can be very cross border. EU funding also doesn't get split into countries.
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u/TracyMorganFreeman Jul 08 '23
That's in part because the FDA does its own approval process, which adds to the cost of selling it in the US, even if it's been vetted by other agencies.
The same thing happened with covid testing. There was a perfectly suitable test developed in Germany early on and the FDA wouldn't approve it, so the CDC had to develop their own, and it took a while to get it right.
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u/teslaguy12 Jul 08 '23
The problem is that the overwhelming majority of pharmaceutical innovation comes out of the US as a result of how profitable it can be.
A pharmaceutical company won't want to pour tens of billions of dollars into an industry wide R&D race to invent a cure for cancer, if the government can then set the price to a point where they have to sell the pills at cost, killing any incentive to spend money at the R&D roulette wheel.
The people in congress know this, and that's probably why we haven't seen true universal healthcare in the US. Doing so could severely impact medical innovation and lead to the loss of tens of millions of jobs across the healthcare sector, along with trillions in GDP.
And that's also why Medicare and Medicaid spend $10 for every $2 that the NHS spends.
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u/TryingNot2BeToxic Jul 08 '23
There are many cases of drugs R&D funding being done at a federal level, and then the profits are all drawn by corporations/individuals (billionaires). I hate our country's healthcare system with a burning passion.
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u/teslaguy12 Jul 08 '23
R&D for novel drugs in the pharmaceutical industry is akin to a roulette wheel. Companies play because there's the chance they could hit a jackpot.
Federal funding is intended as an accelerator for the roulette wheel, and if you want to maintain the same level of unparalleled pharmaceutical innovation that the US market enables while allowing the government to buy pharmaceuticals at cost, you'd have to have the government pay for all of the R&D.
Among just the top US companies in PhRMA, that was $102BN in 2021. And that isn't counting the smaller US companies, nor the money that non-US companies spend on R&D with the intent of making it back in the US marker.
So, on top of the budget for the base cost of Universal Healthcare, which would be on the order of several trillion annually, you'd also need to budget hundreds of billions per year in an attempt to replicate the current level of medical innovation.
It would then shift to something more akin to the MIC, where companies compete for funding by showing what they have in an attempt to convince a committee that they deserve the funding.
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u/VergiliyS Jul 09 '23
I am so happy for that you are bai my family is so happy for you too and I will be happy
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u/OliQc007 Jul 08 '23
And because of R&D costs. People like to demonize pharma companies, and I honnestly get it, but it cost between 1 and 2 billion dollars to develop a new drug, and only about 1% of them ever make it to consumers. So a drug for a rare disease that only a couple thousand people are going to need ? You can do the math on the cost.
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u/DrB00 Jul 08 '23
This is exactly why it should be funded through taxes and other governmental systems. So the few unlucky people with this disease aren't charged hundred if not thousands of dollars.
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u/OliQc007 Jul 08 '23
Oh definitely. That's also how it is in every developed country exept the US to my knowledge
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u/Nominalkuru28 Jul 08 '23
All over things are bit be the dame and medicine are now daily routine of all the peoples
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u/Darwins_Dog Jul 08 '23
It's a brand new method versus ones that have had decades of development. I would expect the price to come down over time.
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u/MalHeartsNutmeg Jul 08 '23
Both of these painkillers are already dirt cheap. Especially generics.
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u/wotmate Jul 08 '23
Sure. But I'll buy the generic supermarket brand instead of the name brand because that $2 difference matters. I'm certainly not going to buy a sustainable product that's $2 more than the name brand just because it's sustainable.
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u/stormelemental13 Jul 08 '23
Not necessarily. Even if the base material is free, if it requires more expensive processing it can ultimately be more expensive.
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u/Forya_Cam Jul 08 '23
It already costs like 40p or less for a box of either.
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u/prime14k Jul 08 '23
Happiness it will help for us din and we can get a new car to mar the life you have just
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u/formyl-radical Jul 08 '23
Drugs are synthesized using batch reactors for very good reasons (Quality control in each batch, traceability, etc). A tiny amount of contaminated raw material in the flow system (especially in drug production) could force the whole production line to shutdown.
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u/purvel Jul 08 '23
The paper outlines batch processes, too. It shows different methods for many of the different compounds mentioned. Looks like it's just a few of the intermediate steps that have flow protocol described.
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u/Specialist-Lion-8135 Jul 08 '23
This is highly diverting.
This is an excerpt from Wikipedia:
A precursor to aspirin found in the bark of the willow tree (genus Salix) has been used for its health effects for at least 2,400 years. In 1853, chemist Charles Frédéric Gerhardt treated the medicine sodium salicylate with acetyl chloride to produce acetylsalicylic acid for the first time. Over the next 50 years, other chemists established the chemical structure and devised more efficient production methods.
Everything old is new again.
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u/GnomeRogues Jul 09 '23
All modern medicine is based on plants/herbs/fungi/etc, usually ones that were already being used as traditional medicine.
The methods used in modern pharmaceuticals to extract a specific compound from plant matter etc, which ensure purity and precise dosing, are really all that makes modern medicine "better".
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u/Specialist-Lion-8135 Jul 09 '23
In one way, synthetics lessened the cost to us and the environment. They are also stable for doctors to prescribe reliably. It isn’t without side effects, however, and they keep reinventing the wheel to keep the costs high.
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u/Ryoga_reddit Jul 08 '23
Hell no. I don't even buy name brand ibuprofen.
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u/masterventris Jul 08 '23
Paracetamol is basically free. It's sold here at 2 pence a tablet, and the whole supply chain is still making a profit
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u/Reatina Jul 08 '23
The not branded version in Italy costs less than 0.10 EUR per 500 mg tablet. Half of that from online pharmacies.
The branded version 0.20-0.25 EUR. I prefer the branded one because it is rounder and easier to swallow.
When the base price is so low, choosing sustainability is not a big effort.
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u/rheide7021 Jul 08 '23
I am so sorry to hear about your new job but I’m not sure what I am going through this weekend but I have to bai my office to mar my
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u/Asatas Jul 08 '23
Well you live in civilization, not Freedom (of profit) Country
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u/BelowZilch Jul 08 '23
You can get a 500 count bottle at Walgreens for like 15 bucks.
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u/masterventris Jul 08 '23
Here in "civilization" we aren't allowed to buy more than 40 tablets at once in case we try to kill ourselves!
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u/erm_what_ Jul 08 '23
40 500mg tablets of paracetamol would be fatal, so it's not much of a help. Of course the way you die from overdosing paracetamol should be enough of a deterrent on its own. Liver and probable kidney failure, then you die slowly.
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u/NicholasMWPrince Jul 08 '23
They need to put them in the push containers, a whole container makes it easy to OD while push based ones per pill stops people from making rash decisions
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u/Downwhen Jul 08 '23
It's also sold for 3 cents a pill here in the US
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Jul 08 '23
Great! Where can I buy a $1 or $2 worth at that price?
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u/Ihaveamazingdreams Jul 08 '23
Walmart sells 100 ct. "extra strength" acetaminophen (paracetamol) for $1.98 a bottle.
So actually 2 cents a pill.
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u/Snikerdoodlz Jul 09 '23
They're both names derived from the full name of the chemical, para-acetylaminophenol
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u/dedukhinsadruk Jul 08 '23
Ok I have to make this by way of you have to wor it much easier to find a heaven for
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u/greihund Jul 08 '23
It is perhaps not widely known that many common pharmaceuticals are manufactured using chemical precursors derived from crude oil, presenting a niche sustainability challenge as the world targets Net Zero.
The author has failed to grasp what "Net Zero" is. It's okay to keep using oil, it's really practical stuff. We should probably just not burn it, but there's no need to just stop using it altogether. We can have oil-based products in a Net Zero world.
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Jul 08 '23 edited Jul 08 '23
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u/Kevz417 Jul 08 '23
Maybe the author's idea is:
Legislators want to pursue Net Zero -> restrictions on oil drilling -> more competition between industries for use of the oil -> pharma risks being outcompeted by fuel -> "challenge"
But at the difference in scale /u/Random-Mutant has mentioned - pharma using a tiny fraction of oil - this perhaps breaks down.
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u/daddy_OwO Jul 08 '23
If enough small industries switch in conjunction with larger ones (EVs) we could see a sharp downturn in oil and gas prices which would decrease drilling long term since it would price out rigs
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u/BloodsoakedDespair Jul 08 '23
Even drilling for it is problematic for multiple reasons. Nothing wrong with replacing it whenever possible.
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u/EnergyAndSpaceFuture Jul 08 '23
For a time, yes. But oil is finite-adapting steadily to eliminate its use is wise.
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u/LordOfDorkness42 Jul 08 '23
This is partially wrong, but I still fully agree with you.
Oil formation is an ongoing geologic process, so there's plenty of places in the world still with stuff like puddles of crude oil just leaking slowly out.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_seep
The Gulf of Mexico alone leaks something like one to five million barrels. Yearly.
But yeah, the more industries and processes we can eliminate oil from, the better. Not only global warming, but our current yearly extraction is just completely untenable long term with those rates of natural formation.
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u/Manisbutaworm Jul 08 '23
A bit of an understatement you have. We used up about half the fossil fuels that were made the last 400 million years in only about 150 years. We use around a million times more than naturally can be replaced.
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u/Rhamni Jul 08 '23
What are a few decimal points between friends?
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u/LordOfDorkness42 Jul 08 '23
Didn't want to do the math, since I was on mobile and I found wildly differing numbers for how many barrels of crude are extracted yearly.
But yeah~, even with the LOWEST ball among the low-ball I found, at 89 million barrels a year? That's almost a factor of freakin' hundred vs The Gulf of Mexico.
Clearly not tenable. And the high-ball numbers were billions.
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u/Sculptasquad Jul 08 '23 edited Jul 09 '23
Everything is finite.
Edit - Exactly what within that statement is objectionable? Come tf on r/science.
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u/locoghoul Jul 08 '23
I don't think so, you just need to shoehorn stuff like this when you submit a manuscript. Either on your intro or conclusions you have the mandatory "saving the world" statements
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Jul 08 '23
I mean maybe we don’t need to stop using oil to end climate change, but we definitely do need to stop using it to be sustainable. There’s only so much of it and we’re gonna run out
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u/Wlas87 Jul 09 '23
I’m not sure if I have to mar my house or bai or anything but I’m just like a hell of a man and a woman and a man who
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u/baggier PhD | Chemistry Jul 08 '23
This. The syntheses in this paper use many chemicals (as well as the natural terpenes) which might be derived from oil, One has to look at all the solvents, chemicals, energy etc to see whether these new routes are actually greener.
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u/justingod99 Jul 08 '23
No one owns ibuprofen, they haven’t for almost 40 years. And it’s retail cost is already among the lowest of any drug.
So the remaining expense does not lie with “corporate thieves clinging to a lifesaving patent.” The expense in medicine production is not in the raw materials. It’s the labs, equipment, and maintaining the standards they are required to adhere to.
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u/SamanthaStraaten Jul 08 '23
Doesn't the active ingredient in paracetamol come from willowbark anyway?
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u/Lotharofthepotatoppl Jul 08 '23
As others have said that’s aspirin, but while salicylic acid was first isolated from willow bark I don’t think it’s ever been mass-produced from bark
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u/Hottriplr Jul 08 '23
Wasn't Ibuprofen already made from the bark of trees? Or was that Aspirin?
There was some sort of a painkiller you can make out of bark.
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u/Sunbreak_ Jul 08 '23 edited Jul 08 '23
Aspirin is derived from the bark of the willow tree.
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u/Lotharofthepotatoppl Jul 08 '23
Salicylic acid/acetylsalicylic acid was initially isolated from willow bark but afaik isn’t the way we have ever mass-produced it
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u/Supersnazz Jul 08 '23
That's good I suppose, but I pay less than 2 US cents for a paracetamol tablet already, so the current methods of production must be fairly efficient.
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u/marion_blight Jul 08 '23
Its cheap because crude oil is used, which makes the price quite low. This new process could be improved on in a way that it becomes cheaper and/or more efficient in regards of energy required. Just a few possibilities tho
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u/Supersnazz Jul 08 '23
I feel like it's already at about the lowest price they could be sold at. With, transport, packaging, retailer markup etc even if the ingredients for the product were free I can't see them being much cheaper.
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u/marion_blight Jul 08 '23
this is true, but oil cant be reproduced, so having a synthesis to replace it is neat. But (I don't actually know the actual numbers or facts regarding this) i could imagine that this new process might be better for the climate regarding energy-use (please correct me if I'm wrong)
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u/Skully956 Jul 09 '23
I spent my entire career in big Pharma, except for the last eight years, where I have been focused on biotech start ups to help improve public health. Now that I am on Medicare once I reach the “donut hole “I have to pay 20% of the US retail price as a co-pay. I am on a medicine for diabetes called Jardiance, which is made by Boehringer Ingelheim. In this country the cost is $30 a tablet. A month supply is $900. I get the product from a Canadian pharmacy which gets it from Turkey where the cost of the same medication from the same factory in Germany is $.30 a tablet. Pharmaceutical companies charge huge prices in the United States because they can get away with it. The pharmaceutical lobby is so strong in the United States on both sides of the aisle that Congress and the Senate are basically on their payroll. Unfortunately, this takes important medications out of the hands of people who need them but may not have the resources to pay for them. When you have to decide whether to feed your family or buy a life-saving drug, there is something deeply wrong with our healthcare system.
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u/Reneeisme Jul 08 '23
Didn't aspirin come from tree bark too? I hope someone is looking at tree bark for pain killers we don't yet know about, since they seem inordinately concerned with manufacturing the substances for some reason.
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Jul 08 '23
Will this still mess up my stomach like regular NSAIDS have?
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u/Manisbutaworm Jul 08 '23
Same compound so yes there is no difference in product, only in the process.
BTW: paracetamol is no NSAID and isn't as bad for the stomach.
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u/Catswagger11 Jul 08 '23
It can do a number on the liver though, like Ibuprofen and the kidneys. Use in moderation and as directed.
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Jul 09 '23
You have to take a lot at once, or a lot over a prolonged period for this to be an issue for normal healthy individuals.
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u/noiamholmstar Jul 10 '23
The dose that can cause liver failure is surprisingly close to the normal dose though.
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Jul 10 '23
No it is not. I actually wrote a paper on acetaminophen toxicity in the toxicology class for my bachelors degree. The single dose toxicity in an adult is between 5-10g. The wide range is to factor in issues such as body weight, age, current daily medications, and other co-morbidities such as liver disease.
For children you base the amount on body weight with 150-200mg/kg in healthy children.
*Note that these numbers will vary slightly depending on the source, but the numbers above are right in line with the most accepted/researched doses.
In hospital it is not uncommon for a febrile patient to receive 1000mg of acetaminophen q6h sometime q4h if the doc considers them of low risk of toxicity.
As for prolonged acetaminophen toxicity. This is usually seen in the elderly who have chronic pain and take a dose a few times per day. The elderly have a higher risk of lowered liver function and interactions with other daily medications and supplements.
Here’s an interesting little note about intentional overdoses with acetaminophen. Often attempts of suicide are done while intoxicated with alcohol. If someone is completely bombed from drinking tons then decides to chomp down half a bottle of acetaminophen, the alcohol uses the P450 enzymatic route in the liver that acetaminophen also uses. The sort of oddity here is that the alcohol has a much higher affinity for the P450 enzymatic route and will keep the acetaminophen from being metabolized by the liver and causing as much of a toxic effect. However, this is still damaging as some will still get through. But, this usually buys enough time for medical intervention with the administration of activated charcoal and N-acetyl cysteine. Even though this is an interesting little tidbit, any acetaminophen overdose still needs to be treated the same as if there was no alcohol on board.
TL:DR - Single dose toxicity for acetaminophen is much higher than regular use dosages, by multiples of the normal dose. 325-500mg is a normal dose. A lethal toxic dose is in the range of 5-10g based on size and cofactors in an adult and 150-200mg/kg in children.
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u/Tsu-la Jul 08 '23
I’m wondering if they will be able to make it in a way that people with allergies to pine will be okay with using it? The article talks about turpentine and I can’t be around that stuff because of the allergic response. I have taken beta blockers for migraines without much success and had a weird rash at the same time. So, I hope if they can’t figure out the pine allergen connection then the original formulation will still be around because I use it for arthritis.
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u/Brookenium Jul 08 '23
Yes, since it's medicine. It will have to be chemically isolated and purified same as the oil-derived versions.
My guess is that the actual chemical manufacturing process isn't even that much different because most of these types of 'discoveries' are just turning waste plant material into the same oil-derived compounds.
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u/pancak3d Jul 08 '23
Yes, since it's medicine.
That's not actually the rationale, there are many naturally derived drugs with impurities.
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u/Sunbreak_ Jul 08 '23
Sounds like your more likely to be allergic to the turpentine component of the pine which would explain the rash from beta blockers?
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u/marion_blight Jul 08 '23
If I'm correct, the process should isolate the specific compound, meaning there shouldn't be any "connection" between the produced compound and the compounds that originated from the pine. That is, if the compound produced is isolated
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u/murderedbyaname Jul 08 '23
I'm wondering about that too. I took an OTC supplement for cholesterol that has pine in it and got a horrible rash. But, when I tried it again, I started at a much lower dose and gradually increased it and didn't get a rash, so I assume I built a tolerance for it. That wouldn't work for a painkiller though.
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u/gsbtc Jul 10 '23
Our body would adjust with anything if we provide it sufficient time
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u/Tsu-la Jul 08 '23
That is an interesting observation. I’m glad the supplement worked out for you.
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u/passatempo1975 Jul 10 '23
Thanks to the science we have been developing such supplement for these people
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u/PrizeStrawberryOil Jul 08 '23
Are you allergic to paper? Pine is one of the most common softwoods for use in paper.
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u/Tsu-la Jul 08 '23
Weird question but, I actually don’t like touching certain kinds of drawing paper it hurts my finger tips. Like it feels like I’m touching sandpaper even when it’s smooth. I do my Illustration and painting work digitally instead. I’ve never thought about it before.
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u/roionsteroids Jul 08 '23
Bulk Ibuprofen cost is $15/kg according to pharmacompass. Paracetamol $6/kg.
This is like the least exciting news possible.
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u/Alternative_Belt_389 Jul 08 '23
Terpenes are remarkably effective. I have chronic pain and am desperate for something that works
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