Roger Sheldon’s E-factor10 is frequently used to highlight the relative inefficiency of pharmaceutical manufacture as opposed to that of petroleum manufacture. This comparison has flaws, however, due to varying product complexity depending upon the particular industry. For example, petroleum scientists collaborate to design unique facilities providing specific engineering solutions to address the physical properties of relatively simple molecules for large-scale manufacture. In contrast, pharmaceutical scientists must generate a diverse array of exceptionally complex targets with little or no specialized engineering adaptation. This high
molecular complexity accompanied by limited engineering flexibility translates to a significant responsibility for efficiency placed directly upon the pharmaceutical chemist.11 Therefore, the primary driVer of Pharmaceutical Green Chemistry becomes the synthetic and analytical chemist.