PFAROS: Minimize the presence of PFAS in healthcare

PFAROS is a European initiative aimed at accelerating the transition away from PFAS substances in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. In line with the EU’s public health, environmental, and industrial policy objectives, PFAROS is developing safe, scalable, and regulatory-compliant alternatives, ensuring that innovation in healthcare goes hand in hand with sustainability.

PFAROS’s mission is to replace PFAS in medical and pharmaceutical applications through an interdisciplinary approach that combines validated alternatives, advanced degradation and waste management technologies, and data science to support well-informed replacement measures and policy initiatives.

At the heart of PFAROS is a policy-based, AI-driven data tool that maps the use of PFAS, identifies viable alternatives, and integrates data on life cycle, exposure, and toxicology—enabling evidence-based policy and regulatory decisions. Combined with broad stakeholder engagement and the integration of social sciences, the project ensures a fair and well-informed transition away from PFAS.

PFAROS will ultimately pave the way for a PFAS-free future for Europe’s healthcare systems by:

   - Develop an integrated testing and evaluation framework to implement the SSbD method for PFAS replacement;

   - Provide validated, industry-ready PFAS alternatives to ensure rapid adoption;

   - Enable data-driven decision-making through an AI-powered PFAROS data tool tailored to support the needs of government agencies;

 - Ensure widespread adoption and promote cross-sectoral collaboration with industry, regulatory authorities, academia, and civil society;

   - Position the EU as a global leader in sustainable chemicals policy and innovation in healthcare.

RISE is one of the major technical partners, leading activities in materials characterisation, pharmaceutical process development, PFAS analytics, SSbD implementation, peptide synthesis, and exploitation. RISE also coordinates several validation and industrial uptake activities across the project.

RISE contribution in detail:

• leads the evaluation, comparison, and implementation of Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) approaches for PFAS replacement in healthcare (William Mackintosh) 
• contributes to mapping PFAS use in healthcare by identifying PFAS-containing products, their functions, and potential alternatives. RISE supports the development of digital substitution tools and integrates technical, safety, sustainability, and exposure data into the project's semantic platform to enable informed decision-making (Lisa Skedung)
• leads the characterisation and benchmarking of existing PFAS-containing materials and newly developed PFAS-free alternatives (Ulla Elofsson)
• leads investigations into interactions between PFAS-free materials and pharmaceutical ingredients, proteins, nucleic acids, blood components, and tissues (Ulla Elofsson)
• develops modelling and experimental approaches to understand and minimise interactions between pharmaceutical products and PFAS-free contact materials (Ulla Elofsson)
• leads the development of PFAS-free peptide synthesis, purification, and analytical methodologies as well as validation and scale-up. The work focuses on replacing TFA and establishing scalable industrial processes guided by Safe and Sustainable by Design principles. (Dana Michel & Tomasz Janosik)
• leads the development of analytical methods to identify and quantify PFAS and PFAS alternatives in healthcare products and exposure scenarios, generating data for risk assessment, safety evaluation, and regulatory compliance (Lisa Skedung)
• provides in silico modelling and predictive tools to evaluate polymer compatibility and optimize PFAS-free material formulations (Petru Niga)
• contributes machine learning and data-driven optimisation tools to support the development of PFAS-free coatings (Petru Niga) 
• will explore PFAS removal using supercritical CO₂ extraction, optimising for separation efficiency and material circularity (Petru Niga)