Our Commitment As a company with the majority of its operations in California, a state that is experiencing increasing water resource challenges, Genentech is conscious of its responsibility to make efficient use of water in its manufacturing, laboratory and other operations. In 2004, we publicly committed to the following goal:
Improve water efficiency* by 10 percent by the year 2010, compared to 2004.
* Water efficiency is measured as total water use divided by units of marketed product produced.
2010 Water Efficiency Goal Progress We are pleased to report that during 2007 we achieved considerable water efficiency gains, with the increase in overall water use of 6 percent as compared to 2006 being significantly outpaced by an increase in marketed product output of 33 percent over the same period. This resulted in a 21 percent decrease in water use per unit of marketed product in 2007 compared with 2006 and a 31 percent decrease compared with the 2004 baseline.
Water use at our South San Francisco facility, the Genentech location that uses the most water, decreased between 2006 and 2007, while production levels at this facility were level over this period.
Water Use
Genentech's Goal for Water Use per Unit of
Marketed Product 2004 to 2010
We have updated our 2005 and 2006 water use figures to reflect the commencement of operations at our new Oceanside facility in mid-2005. For the first 12 months of operation, the Oceanside facility was preparing to commence manufacturing and did not start actual production until mid-2006. In November 2006, Genentech announced that it entered into an agreement with Lonza by which Lonza would purchase our manufacturing facility in Porriño, Spain. Consequently our water consumption data for 2007 do not include the Porriño facility.
We use the greatest amount of water in our manufacturing operations, primarily in the production of cell growth media for our products, and in cleaning activities. During 2007, our South San Francisco manufacturing buildings were responsible for approximately 60 percent of the total water use at this facility. Over the last two years, we have focused heavily on increasing the overall efficiency of our manufacturing processes. For example, we achieved 55 percent greater efficiency in the production of our Rituxan therapy. This means that we are now able to manufacture 55 percent more product per batch, with multiple additional benefits, including less water used per unit of product output. Two key areas of activity that have driven these improvements are optimization of our cell culture processes and refinement of our downstream purification processes.
Our Vacaville facility commissioned a new production operation during 2007, which led to an increase of water use at that facility. The increase was due in part to unanticipated issues associated with a water treatment system that was installed to support this new operation. The team at Vacaville has identified the source of the issues and will be carrying out work during 2008 to address them, with the goal of reducing water use.
Read feature stories illustrating some of Genentech's efforts in the area of water use.
Going Forward During 2008 we will be investigating and, where viable, developing opportunities to specifically target water reductions in our manufacturing processes.
We will also pursue opportunities to reduce water consumed in other areas, such as landscaping and office buildings, through measures ranging from the simple to the complex. We intend to expand our use of non-potable water for irrigation, install more dual flush toilets and investigate the use of automatic moisture sensors for our irrigation systems. We intend to install a condensate recovery system at our new Singapore facility.