“My original education was as a veterinarian, but one of my mentors worked with the pharmaceutical industry and encouraged me to take on a role as an occupational toxicologist.” Ester earned a master’s degree in toxicology and risk assessment and then established processes to protect worker safety at Lonza and Novartis before joining Takeda.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, she began to contemplate how the pharmaceutical industry was going to look after the global crisis and started trying to determine ways to bring about a more environmentally sustainable future.
“I was trying to understand where the world would be after the pandemic. I saw an opportunity to partner my knowledge of toxicology, chemical compliance, and the regulations that were starting to come out in Europe. I wanted to make sure we did not just focus on one side of the story. Pollution is a big issue, but we also have to be careful about biodiversity and climate change.”
“I did an environmental study and used the knowledge I had in this area to create a sustainability by design program for Takeda and then partnered with coworkers to determine how to break the overall program into tangible actions. The sustainability by design program integrates sustainability into the life cycle of the products that we manufacture or develop. Helping build a company culture based on sustainability is very exciting. You see people get excited about their work and being champions of the environment.”
“In my role, I also focus on regulatory aspects. My team and I monitor global regulations related to chemical and material compliance, assessing their potential impacts. We proactively integrate these insights and exclude certain chemicals from development to avoid future regulatory issues.”
Throughout her career, Ester has relied on ISPE for information and inspiration and is excited to help kick start the new Sustainability Community of Practice (CoP). “When I was working on occupational toxicology, I used ISPE Guidance Documents and information as my north star. They were always very useful and extremely well written. I hoped that one day I would have an opportunity to be able to work with ISPE and generate something meaningful. I’m really happy to have this opportunity as Chair of the new Sustainability CoP. The idea is to provide a venue for professional growth in the sustainability area because it is a part of our future. I’m hoping we’ll discuss challenges, discover ways to collaborate, and work to find innovative solutions.”
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