Breaking Down the Unused Waste Problem in Life Sciences
If you’ve ever worked in a lab, you know how many high-quality products remain unused and eventually end up in the trash. But how big is this problem in our industry? Let’s examine it across the product lifecycle.
Boom and Bust Industry
Our sector is notoriously difficult to succeed in: bringing a therapy to market typically requires over 10 years and more than $1 billion. Despite major funding and bright minds, 90% of companies fail. Beyond job losses, a liquidation often leaves equipment without a home, and consumables fare even worse.
- • Most attention goes to intellectual property (IP); instrumentation might be auctioned briefly, barely reaching relevant buyers.
- • Even well-intentioned donations can fail if no research institution needs the items, pushing them to landfill.
- Pipeline Deprioritization and Overordering Even for successful biotech firms, time pressure to reach the next stage can force them to deprioritise certain pipelines, leading to piles of unused reagents and instruments in storage. To avoid backorder delays, many companies over-purchase plates or consumables from multiple suppliers, resulting in hundreds of unused items.
- Pharma Inefficiencies Hundreds—if not thousands—of pharma programs are discontinued each year, often for strategic reasons rather than poor science, efficacy, or safety. Leadership changes and cost-cutting measures leave unused instruments and consumables collecting dust. The "IP valley of death" means a program dropped at year seven has often burned half its patent life, making it undesirable for further development.
- Supplier Inefficiencies Leading suppliers can see 5–10% waste in products they never sell. Demand forecasting is tricky, and suppliers fear losing customers if top-selling items go out of stock. Short-expiry goods—still perfectly fine—lack an effective channel to be resold and end up discarded. Cancelled orders, labelling errors, or obsolete stock add to the problem.
"One major pharma company told us it had to throw away 15 truckloads of products in one go."
How Can Wasteless Bio Address These Challenges?
The Wasteless Bio community and marketplace are built specifically for high-quality, unwanted products that might otherwise be tossed. We harness our network of partners and customers to promote:
- Second-hand products from liquidated companies
- Excess products from overordering and pipeline deprioritization
- Short-expiry or surplus goods from original suppliers
- Free product donations within our scientific community
Many companies try to do the right thing by donating items, but they often lack the time or connections to find appropriate recipients, so these goods can still end up as waste. Our ultimate aim is to boost collaboration, cut operational waste, and lower the barrier to new drug development.