India Pharma Outlook Team | Monday, 18 August 2025
According to Saransh Chaudhary, president of Global Critical Care at Venus Remedies and CEO of the Venus Medicine Research Centre, environmental restrictions are desperately needed because antibiotic levels in urban and industrial wastewater around the world frequently above safety criteria.
A 2024 study that found that some pharmaceutical industry effluents had levels as high as 10,182 mg/kg proved this. Antibiotics are frequently not completely eliminated by standard treatment facilities, and their levels increase in warmer months. He noted that climate change is causing notable changes in infectious disease patterns and the transfer of resistant organisms to previously untouched areas. These changes include rising global temperatures, intense weather events, and shifting ecosystems.
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Infrastructure and enforcement limitations mostly affect low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). India has had difficulty formalizing laws governing the discharge of antibiotics into water bodies; in 2021, a 2020 norm for pharmaceutical effluents was revoked, eliminating clear restrictions on antibiotic residues. Chaudhary told Pharmabiz in an email that the environment is still a persistent source of AMR in the absence of strong, legally binding norms.
The lack of legally obligatory, standardized guidelines for antibiotic discharge undermines global antimicrobial resistance (AMR) policy, as the majority of efforts are aspirational or voluntary with inconsistent implementation. Although a 10% decrease in AMR mortality by 2030 is the goal of the 2024 UN General Assembly's political declaration, enforcement tools, incentives, and sanctions are still lacking.
