Daring the Challenge and Thinking Big: The Value of Early Process R&D

摘要

In this article (CHIMIA 2016, 70, 502-511), the biographies of the prizewinners Stefan Abele, Jacques-Alexis Funel, Gunther Schmidt, Christian Moessner, Mischa Schwaninger, and Roger Marti were incomplete and are presented here. Stefan Abele studied chemistry in Germany, France, and Switzerland. He did his diploma work with Prof. Dr. R. R. Schmidt on C-ketosides in Konstanz and obtained his PhD under the guidance of Prof. Dr. D. Seebach at the ETH Zurich in 1999. For 7 years, he was working at Carbogen-Amcis, where he had the pleasure to perform or supervise the production of more than 80 Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API), in the roles of Project Chemist, Group Leader R&D, and Head GMP production. In addition, he was deputy Head ESH releasing production protocols at the Neuland site. In 2006, Stefan Abele set up a fully integrated Process R&D group at Actelion Pharmaceuticals Ltd with responsibility for all scientific, technical, organizational, and budgetary aspects. His teams' tasks encompass route finding and production of multi-kilogram amounts of API's, and the development of 2nd generation routes, thereby combining scientific understanding and flexibility with commercial perspectives. Outsourcing parts of the work is driven by tactical or technological considerations and is deemed crucial for a lean and efficient drug development. He has authored around 60 scientific papers and patent applications, and he is frequently giving invited lectures in industry, international conferences, and at universities.