HK inno.N announced on Monday that its gastroesophageal reflux disease treatment, K-CAB 50 mg, has become the world’s first oral medication to receive an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) certification.
On September 2, HK inno.N representatives attended the EPD certification ceremony in Oslo, Norway, jointly hosted by EPD-Global and the International Sustainability Certification Corporation, where they received the EPD certificate for K-CAB 50 mg.
The EPD is a system that quantifies a product’s environmental impact throughout its lifecycle, from raw material production to manufacturing and distribution, in accordance with international standards. Verified by third parties and publicly disclosed, it’s often referred to as a product’s environmental ID card due to its objective assessment of environmental credentials.
K-CAB 50 mg’s EPD was registered on the international EPD platform, EPD-Global, in June of this year. Prior to registration, the International Sustainability Certification Corporation (IGSC) conducted an independent verification based on ISO 14025 standards.
HK inno.N completed a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for K-CAB 50 mg in line with ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 standards. An LCA quantitatively evaluates environmental impacts such as carbon emissions and resource use throughout a product’s entire lifecycle, from raw material extraction to disposal.
The EPD for K-CAB 50 mg covers the manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients, finished product production, packaging, and distribution. However, it excludes the post-consumption phase and disposal process from its current scope.
Until recently, the pharmaceutical and biotech industries faced challenges in implementing EPDs due to the lack of certified environmental assessment guidelines specific to pharmaceuticals. This changed in November 2025 when the British Standards Institution (BSI) published PAS 2090:2025, an international standard PCR for environmental assessment of pharmaceuticals. HK inno.N secured the EPD for K-CAB 50 mg based on these new standards.
With this EPD certification, HK inno.N can now provide verified environmental information for its products to global customers and buyers in markets across Latin America and Asia. As demands for carbon emissions calculations and environmental audits throughout the supply chain intensify, the third-party verified EPD for K-CAB 50 mg serves as a valuable resource to meet customers’ growing Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)-related requirements.
A spokesperson for HK inno.N stated that securing the EPD for K-CAB 50 mg shortly after the establishment of standards for pharmaceutical life cycle assessments marks a significant ESG milestone for the Korean pharmaceutical and biotech industry. Going forward, it plans to expand environmental assessments to other key products, enhancing the environmental information management system across the entire product portfolio.
In particular, as demands for carbon emissions calculations and environmental audits throughout the supply chain intensify, the third-party verified EPD for K-CAB 50 mg can be used as a resource to respond to customers’ ESG-related requirements.