The treatment of pharmaceutical effluent using an appropriate technology has become so important. Anaerobic packed bed reactor is an efficient method for pharmaceutical effluent treatment because of the high organic content present in it. In this study, a heavy-polluted pharma effluent is treated using an anaerobic packed bed reactor. The performance of the anaerobic reactor was identified with respect to chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal, methane yield, and gas production. The results showed that COD was reduced from 73% to 60% for an organic loading rate (OLR) of 0.6036-1.7487 kg COD m(-3)center dot d(-1). As the OLR increases, the removal efficiency of COD decreases gradually to around 52% for an OLR of 2.34 kg COD m(-3)center dot d(-1).