Can Pharmaceutical Excipients Threaten the Aquatic Environment? A Risk Assessment Based on the Microtox® Biotest
Journal: Molecules
Year: 2023

The ecotoxicological impact of pharmaceuticals has received considerable attention, primarily focusing on active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) while largely neglecting the potential hazards posed by pharmaceutical excipients. Therefore, we analyzed the ecotoxicity of 16 commonly used pharmaceutical excipients, as well as 26 API-excipient and excipient-excipient mixtures utilizing the Microtox<sup>®</sup> test. In this way, we assessed the potential risks that pharmaceutical excipients, gener