Drugs, chiral intermediates, biocatalysis

Patel, R. N. 2006b. Biocatalysis Synthesis of chiral intermediates for drugs. Curr. Op. Drug Discov. Dev., 9(10), 741-764. 

Chiral Pharmaceutical Intermediates. The use of biocatalysis for producing chirally pure pharmaceuticals is now an accepted technology that complements alternative chemical and physical methods.23 The size of the current world market for single enantiomer drugs, over 150 billion in 2002, offers plenty of incentive to develop competitive biocatalytic routes for key intermediates. The market for chiral intermediates themselves, although far smaller, is still considerable at over 7 billion... 

One of the inherent advantages of enzymes is the ability to discriminate between stereoisomers, often generating products with ena-tiomeric excesses (i.e., of over 98%). Judicious application of biocatalysis can also reduce the number of chemical steps needed to synthesize certain drugs, leading to hybrid chemoenzymatic processes with lower costs and less waste. The range of enzymes used in the synthesis of chiral intermediates has expanded beyond esterases and acylases and... 

Patel, R. N., Biocatalytic Routes to Chiral Intermediates for Development of Drugs, Biocatalysis for Green Chemistry and Chemical Process Development, John WUey Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 2011, pp. 89-149. 

The production of single enantiomers of drug intermediates is increasingly important in the pharmaceutical industry. Biocatalysis provides organic chemists an alternate opportunity to prepare pharmaceutically important chiral compounds. The advantages of biocatalysis over chemical catalysis are that enzyme-catalyzed reactions are stereoselective and regioselective, and can be carried out at ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure providing an environmentally friendly system. The selective examples presented in this... 

R. N. Patel, Synthesis of Chiral Drug Intermediates, in R. N. Patel (Ed.), Stereoselective Biocatalysis, Marcel Dekker, New York, Basel, 2000, pp. 87-130. 

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