Advances in catalysis: engineered enzymes for efficient API synthesis

摘要

Advances in enzyme engineering technology over the last 15 years has enabled the development of highly efficient manufacturing routes to many blockbuster and late clinical stage drug active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Several blockbuster drug actives including atorvastatin, amoxicillin, esomeprazole and simvastatin have been manufactured using engineered enzymes. Only very recently, however, has the speed of catalyst development approached the rate needed to match pharmaceutical chemical development. While it has long been known that enzymes are capable of establishing chirality in organic synthesis, rapid development of scalable syntheses has only been possible with the establishment of technologies for engineering activity and stability in Standard synthetic organic synthesis conditions.