Sustainability is Good Business: An Interview with Astellas

What does a Chief Strategy Officer do? For Astellas’ Adam Pearson, the role involves corporate strategy, business development, patient centricity, sustainability – and even working with healthcare solutions outside of traditional pharma, such as in digital health and bioelectronic implants.

There’s a lot to juggle, but for this interview we had one topic in mind: sustainability.

Pearson sees sustainability not just as an obligation, but as an opportunity to future-proof an organization while delivering tangible societal value.

In this conversation, Pearson shares Astellas’ evolving approach to sustainability, from the use of renewable energy and community engagement in Ireland to cross-industry collaboration on child-friendly medicines. He also reflects on the challenges of navigating regulatory landscapes across continents and the importance of empowering employees at every level to contribute to meaningful change. 

What is Astellas’ approach to sustainability?

We try to frame our goals in a way that supports sustainability – particularly when it comes to the health of society. We're always asking: how can we direct what we do to have a positive impact?

It’s important to think carefully about both the environmental impact of our operations and how we engage with society beyond our core pharmaceutical business. We try to engage everyone in the company to think about sustainability from the perspective of their own role and how they can improve. This isn’t easy to maintain consistently. In any job, people can naturally become very focused on their immediate responsibilities – sometimes at the expense of broader concerns.

We want to embed sustainability deeply into everything we do and make it part of the mindset across the organization. We don’t want it to be a standalone initiative.

What’s involved in planning a sustainability strategy?

We use a materiality matrix as a key tool. This is something that is built into our broader corporate strategic planning process, which we refresh every 3-5 years. The matrix helps us identify what’s important to society, what’s important to the business, and where those two intersect. From there, we prioritize. Right now, we've identified nine key areas of focus. Broadly speaking, those fall into three main themes.

First, how our core business can have a positive impact on society. This includes delivering innovative medicines, encouraging responsible innovation, and managing the broader effects of what we do.

Second, the environment. How can we operate in a way that minimizes our environmental impact and – ideally – improves it over time?

And third, governance and people. This is about how we support our employees, how we engage with the communities we operate in, and how we run the company responsibly. We take the “G” in “ESG” very seriously.

Although these are our broad focus areas, it’s important to acknowledge that they aren’t fixed and will evolve over time. We're currently in the process of renewing our strategic plan and considering what’s most relevant now and where we should put more emphasis moving forward.

Different countries have different approaches and regulations around sustainability. What challenges does this create for an international business?

There’s always a need to be sensitive to what's happening in different regions. You have to listen and you have to adapt to the evolving regulations.

Take reporting, for example. There's growing pressure not just to improve your sustainability impact, but to report on it as robustly as you report your financials. We’d been gearing up to report under European standards, because we have large enough entities in Europe to be included. Then the EU decided to delay implementation by two years.

Meanwhile, Japan has been developing similar sustainability reporting standards which were originally set to be implemented a year after Europe’s. Now the timeline has flipped, so we’ve had to pivot our focus and get ready to report in Japan first. It's not that the two systems are in conflict, but it does mean we're constantly adjusting.

And then in the US, the tone around sustainability can be quite different. We're paying attention to that too, especially in terms of legal and regulatory implications, and how certain topics are approached.

But more broadly, I’d say we’re not doing this work just because individual countries are telling us to. We're doing it because it's the right thing to do. It creates a more sustainable business and aligns with our values and long-term goals. That foundation doesn’t really change.

What success stories have you had?

As a pharmaceutical company, our environmental impact in terms of carbon emissions and other factors is probably less than in many other industries. That said, within our own footprint the biggest environmental impact comes from manufacturing plants, particularly chemical production facilities.

We have great initiatives going on across our global network, but there are some standout examples in Ireland. We’ve got two plants there – and we are also building a third. The teams in Ireland have had a strong commitment to environmental responsibility for over 20 years.

A wind turbine was installed at one of the plants over a decade ago – and it’s now being upgraded to a newer, more efficient model. We’ve also installed solar panels on the roof and recently acquired land to expand solar generation even further.

Another big part of the environmental effort is around steam generation, which our plants rely on heavily. Traditionally, you'd use diesel or gas, but we realized we could use wood chips instead. These are sourced from a local timber farm as a waste product so there’s no deforestation involved – just smart reuse of material that would otherwise go unused.

Thanks to all these efforts, along with purchasing electricity from renewable suppliers to cover the rest of our needs, about 74% of the energy used at our plant in County Kerry (in Killorglin) now comes from renewable sources.

I visited the site last summer. It’s an amazing place! Beyond reducing their carbon footprint, they’re thinking holistically about environmental impact. That includes managing hazardous and non-hazardous waste more effectively, reducing the volume of waste generated, and ensuring that any hazardous substances are handled in a way that minimizes or eliminates environmental risks.

One particularly smart move was around packaging. A lot of waste was coming from test runs for packaging materials, so the staff figured out how to dramatically reduce that waste through smarter processes.

All of these are strong success stories, but something else that’s really powerful at the plant – and reflects what we’re trying to do more broadly as a company – is how they engage with the local community. They don’t just focus on the environmental footprint; they also support science education. They bring school kids into the plant to learn and also work with local universities to build interest in careers in science and pharma. It’s especially meaningful in such a rural area, where opportunities might otherwise be limited.

It’s very inspiring. And what excites me most is that everyone at the plant is engaged. They are always thinking about what else they can do and how they can improve further. This mindset of continuous improvement is a fantastic example of how we want to approach sustainability at Astellas.

And of course, everything we’ve learned from that plant is being applied to the new one we’re building in Ireland. Local engagement is a vital part of the process. We’re already in conversations with the local university about how we can create career paths for students. As we grow the workforce, we want to make sure we’re developing talent locally.

A company shouldn’t be an isolated entity. Being part of a broader community, or even part of a global system depending on the context.

How can companies ensure their initiatives are genuinely impactful?

One of the key ways to avoid the trap of greenwashing and the mindset that leads to it is to stay focused on why sustainability truly matters. It’s not just a nice-to-have; it’s something that’s intrinsically important to the future of any business.

All companies, including ours, depend on energy and natural resources to operate – and those resources are diminishing. If you take a step back and think about it, the majority of the global population is employed by companies. So, it’s not just governments or individuals who can make a difference. We, as companies, have a critical role to play in driving meaningful change.

Even in the short term, there are clear examples of why it matters. If you look at our plant in County Kerry, 74% of its energy now comes from renewable sources – much of which is generated on-site. When energy prices surged in recent years, the plant was largely insulated. This demonstrates how being more sustainable makes sound business sense.

Another area we focus on is strengthening health systems in lower-resourced countries where we operate. These initiatives aren’t about promoting our medicines directly but are instead aimed at helping the broader healthcare infrastructure. In the long run, stronger health systems benefit everyone, including us. If more patients are identified and treated earlier, this supports better outcomes across the board.

So, in many cases, what you do in the name of sustainability ends up creating value for the company too. It just tends to be on a longer-term cycle.

Of course, there are always limits to what any organization can do, but if you start from the mindset of wanting to create a positive impact that also supports your long-term strategy then sustainability becomes much more integrated with your core business and financial objectives.

Do you have any tips for smaller companies that might not know where to start when it comes to sustainability?

I work in a large company, so I acknowledge it’s probably a bit easier for us in some ways. That said, we don’t actually have a huge team dedicated solely to sustainability. What has really made the difference is getting broad engagement across the organization.

This is key for any company, no matter the size. Try to engage employees. You need their expertise and insight to identify the right actions. It’s also incredibly motivating for people to be involved in sustainability efforts. Most of us want to work for a company that acts responsibly. When you head home at the end of the day, you're a citizen too. It matters to people that the organization they’re giving their time and energy to is doing the right thing.

At Astellas, we have a small core team focused on sustainability, but many more people – across our manufacturing plants, labs, and other departments – take sustainability on as part of their goals. They often have the clearest view of where the real impact is happening, whether that’s environmental or related to our engagement with health systems.

We also try to empower local teams around the world to bring forward ideas for how we can build more sustainable practices – especially in the way we interact with healthcare systems. Even if you’re a smaller company, I think starting by harnessing the insight and motivation of your people is a powerful way forward.

What role can collaboration play in sustainability?

I’ve focused a lot on the environmental side of sustainability, but there’s another initiative we are involved with that shows the importance of collaboration. It’s been a multi-year project involving collaboration with other pharmaceutical and research companies – a consortium effort to develop a child-friendly formulation of a medicine for schistosomiasis.

The existing pill has a very bitter taste and was not available in a water-soluble form. This makes it difficult for children – especially those in low-resource settings – to take it effectively. The goal was to create a soluble formulation that’s easier for children to swallow once dissolved in water, and that is stable in hot and humid climates, and more suitable for distribution in the developing world.

We partnered with Merck KGaA in Germany and several other organizations for the project. Our contribution was developing the child-friendly, easily ingestible tablet formulation. The new version has now been registered with the EMA and we're working on making it broadly available through the consortium.

I think this really speaks to another important dimension of sustainability. Partnering is important. None of us had all the capabilities to do this alone, but each company brought something unique to the table. By working together, we’ve been able to create something that could have a meaningful impact on public health.

What else is happening at Astellas that you'd like to share?

We’re in a really exciting phase as a company. Our largest product, Xtandi for prostate cancer, is heading toward the end of its lifecycle within the next two to four years.

To prepare for that, we’ve been strategically launching new key products: three in oncology, one in ophthalmology, and one in women’s health. All five are growing strongly. In fact, last financial year we saw a 19% increase in overall sales, and those five products doubled their combined revenue.

Beyond that, we’re advancing several new programs into the late phases of development. We’ve defined four primary focus areas in our R&D strategy, and this year we expect each of those areas to deliver a proof-of-concept milestone – with some hopefully entering phase III trials. Those readouts will be hugely important in shaping the company’s future direction.

We’re also active in business development. We recently signed a deal for a promising antibody-drug conjugate with potential in pancreatic and stomach cancers.

What’s especially exciting is that a lot of our late-stage R&D work is pushing into areas that are quite novel for the industry. This includes gene therapy, cell therapy, regenerative ophthalmology, and high-need oncology areas such as pancreatic cancer.

All of this work is tied to our core mission: addressing serious unmet medical needs for patients. That continues to be our main focus and drives everything we do.

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