Cutting Back on Pouches and Medicine Bags Provided With Eye Drops
-Santen’s Efforts to Reduce Single-Use Plastic to Decrease Our Environmental Footprint-

August 5, 2024, Santen Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (head office: Osaka; hereinafter Santen) is pleased to announce that the company has started cutting back on pouches and medicine bags provided with eye drops as part of its efforts to reduce the environmental impact. With the exception of products requiring a bag or pouch (used, for example, to shield against light or prevent moisture from evaporating) in order to preserve quality, Santen is gradually eliminating packaging for prescription products, beginning with the August 2024 shipments of eye drops for medical use in Japan. Since 2022, Santen has been steadily phasing out eye drop pouches for non-prescription products sold in Japan. The complete elimination of pouches and medicine bags from all applicable products will result in a reduction of approximately 150 million single-use plastic bags annually.

Santen recognizes that this initiative helps to fulfill its corporate social responsibility as a company from the perspective of global environmental preservation and to strengthen its foundation for sustainable business growth. In 2021, the company established “Santen Vision for the Earth 2050¹,” the environmental vision established in moving toward the goal of 2050. Santen is committed to integrated efforts to address climate change, reduce its environmental impact, and conserve biodiversity to ensure a beautiful world for all to see. This initiative to reduce eye drop bags and pouches is one activity that helps achieving this vision. In addition, this effort also supports the Japan Ophthalmic Pharmaceutical Manufacturer’s Association’s² proposal³ to reduce the impact that the entire industry has on the environment by advancing initiatives that reduce medicine bags, which use a tremendous amount of plastic materials second only to containers for eye drops.

Takahiro Morita, Santen’s Global Head of Core Principle & Sustainability, commented: "Santen recognizes global environmental conservation to be one of the most important challenges facing humanity. We have been promoting various environmental conservation measures. Measures to address plastic use are one of the most important ways in which we make this effort. Santen has continually taken up the challenge of contributing to reducing our environmental footprint while adopting a patient-centric approach to innovation and quality. Our efforts have included previous reductions of plastic materials in packaging and wrapping materials as well as promoting the replacement of plastic with biomass plastic for eye drop containers⁴. As a specialized company dedicated to eye health, it is our responsibility to actively promote these initiatives to scale back medicine bags and pouches, without compromising on the quality and safety delivered to patients, as we take the next step towards reducing our environmental footprint.”

Based on the core principle “Tenki ni sanyo suru” which means “exploring the secrets and mechanisms of nature in order to contribute to people’s health,” Santen has contributed to society’s sustainable development and conducted business in pursuit of making patients and their loved ones even happier with the aim of enhancing our corporate value over the medium- and long-term. As a specialty company focusing on eye health, Santen aims to make further contributions to patients by focusing on our business to realize for individuals “Happiness with Vision,” and to fulfill its social responsibility as a company, the company considers ESG (environmental, social and governance) initiatives to be important.

1. See https://www.santen.com/ja/sustainability/environmental#Vision for more information about the Santen Vision for the Earth 2050.
2. Japan Ophthalmic Pharmaceutical Manufacturer’s Association’s members are manufacturers and distributors of ophthalmic preparations for medical use for the purpose of contributing to improving and developing ophthalmologic medical treatments with a streamlined and stable supply, improving the quality of ophthalmic preparations for medical use, and communicating information about ophthalmic preparations for medical use.
   https://gankayozai.jp
3. See https://gankayozai.jp/wp/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/d0bb5482963f9890e9fb4b9acd386a24.pdf for more information about the Japan Ophthalmic Pharmaceutical Manufacturer’s Association’s proposal for cooperation in reducing the medicine bags.
4. As of the end of March 2024, 14 items have been completely replaced.

Contact
Corporate Communications
Santen Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.
E-mail: communication@santen.com