Master PAS 2090 with PharmaLCA.

PharmaLCA is a PAS 2090-compliant life cycle assessment (LCA) software application developed by AllocNow, built in close collaboration with the Pharma LCA Consortium. Its mission is to transform how the pharmaceutical industry measures and optimizes environmental impacts by making LCA accessible to all stakeholders across the pharma value chain, including global pharmaceutical companies, supply chain partners, contract manufacturing organizations (CMOs), and sustainability professionals at all levels of LCA expertise. PharmaLCA enables companies to generate LCAs for their entire product portfolio in full compliance with PAS 2090, the first sector-specific international standard for pharmaceutical LCA. 

PharmaLCA was developed by AllocNow, the globally leading automated LCA technology provider for the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. AllocNow was selected by the Pharma LCA Consortium through a rigorous vetting process to develop and operate the PAS 2090-compliant LCA application for the pharmaceutical sector. The platform is built on AllocNow's proven Product Sustainability Platform, adapted specifically to the methodological requirements of PAS 2090 and the practical needs of pharmaceutical companies at all scales. 

The Pharma LCA Consortium is a formal industry initiative of eleven leading global pharmaceutical companies, launched on November 1, 2023, under the banner of the Pharmaceutical Environment Group (PEG) and with support from the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI) Health Systems Task Force. The Consortium's purpose is to facilitate a universal approach to assessing the environmental impact of pharmaceutical products, enabling pharmaceutical companies and their stakeholders to make informed choices about product development and patient care. The Pharma LCA Consortium consists of eleven founding member companies: AstraZeneca, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Merck KGaA, MSD, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi, and Takeda Pharmaceuticals. These companies collectively represent a significant share of global pharmaceutical production and have committed to developing and adopting a universal, harmonized approach to environmental LCA for pharmaceutical products. The Consortium operates under the Pharmaceutical Environment Group (PEG) with support from the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI). 

The vision of PharmaLCA is "From Theory to Practice: Practical Enablement of PAS 2090 Aligned LCAs for Pharmaceutical Products." Its mission is to transform how the pharmaceutical industry measures and optimizes environmental impacts by accelerating the adoption of life cycle assessment, and making it accessible to all stakeholders across the pharma ecosystem, from pharmaceutical companies and supply chain partners to contract manufacturers and industry professionals at every level of LCA expertise.

PharmaLCA pursues two interconnected sets of strategic objectives. The first is to break through the barriers that have historically limited LCA adoption in pharma: overcoming the technical challenges unique to medicine environmental LCA, delivering streamlined yet scientifically robust pharmaceutical footprinting solutions, and bridging the expertise gap in LCA execution by making PAS 2090 a practical enabler rather than a compliance burden. The second is to drive broader pharmaceutical industry evolution: championing PAS 2090 adoption from theory to practical execution, engaging pharmaceutical stakeholders at all levels through environmental LCA, and pioneering the industry's transition from carbon-specific metrics to comprehensive multi-impact environmental assessment. 

PharmaLCA is designed for every organization across the pharmaceutical value chain, not just large global companies with in-house LCA expertise. The platform is accessible to global pharmaceutical manufacturers, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), contract manufacturing organizations (CMOs), and sustainability professionals at all levels of LCA experience. For non-experts, PharmaLCA guides users through compliant PAS 2090 assessments step by step without requiring deep technical LCA knowledge. For advanced users, the platform retains full control for detailed modeling. This universal accessibility is central to the mission of both PharmaLCA and the Pharma LCA Consortium. 

No. PharmaLCA is specifically designed to be accessible to sustainability managers, environmental teams, and procurement professionals who are not LCA experts. All PAS 2090 methodological requirements are translated directly into guided, step-by-step workflows within the platform, so users do not need to read or interpret the standard themselves. For organizations without an in-house LCA specialist, PharmaLCA bridges the expertise gap and makes compliant pharmaceutical LCA achievable. At the same time, advanced users retain full control for detailed modeling, ensuring the platform serves the full spectrum of user sophistication without adding complexity for non-experts. 

PharmaLCA integrates curated, high-quality secondary emission datasets from ecoinvent directly within the application, with no separate licensing required for users. In addition, the Pharma LCA Consortium is developing a dedicated PAS 2090-compliant Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) database tailored specifically to the pharmaceutical sector, developed in collaboration with ecoinvent and Boehringer Ingelheim. The first release of this pharmaceutical-specific LCI database comprises 186 regionalized datasets and will be accessible via ecoinvent. This sector-specific database will significantly improve the accuracy and relevance of background data for pharmaceutical LCA compared to using generic chemical datasets. 

PharmaLCA is built on AllocNow's secure, ISO 27001-certified infrastructure. The platform uses a multi-tenant cloud architecture with strict data isolation between company accounts, ensuring that one organization's data is never accessible to another. All data handling is GDPR compliant, with full alignment to EU data protection requirements. Enterprise-grade access controls include role-based permissions and SSO-ready authentication. AllocNow has successfully completed every customer security vetting process to date, demonstrating a consistent track record of meeting the highest enterprise security standards.

The commercial launch of PharmaLCA is planned for October 2026 at CPHI in Milan, the premier pharmaceutical trade show globally. AllocNow is also presenting PharmaLCA at the Pharma Sustainability Days on May 27 to 28, 2026 in Geneva, together with representatives of the Pharma LCA Consortium, where attendees can get a live preview of the platform.