Current Development in Biocatalysis: Biocatalyst Engineering

Guang Yang, Ph.D.

Department of Process Development, Boston Institute of Biotechnology, USA

Dr. Guang Yang, Department of Process Development, Boston Institute of Biotechnology, USA.

Keywords: Pharmaceutical Industry; Biocatalyst Engineering; Catalysis; Sustainable Chemistry

Abstract

Modern drug manufacturing faces both ecological and economic challenges. Catalyst, one of the key components in the synthesis of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), also plays a crucial role in the production pipeline. Although being used widely in industrial process, transition-metal catalysts still seem both costly and inefficiently, owing to the expense and toxicity of metals [1]. The emphasized “green” and sustainable chemistry nowadays requires improvement and revolution in the pharmaceutical industry. Sheldon’s environmental factor [2], also known as E-factor, defined as the mass ratio of waste against product in a chemical process, is one of the gauges assessing the process ecology. Based on Sheldon’s analysis, the E-factor of pharmaceutical processes are 25-100, comparing to 0.1 of oil refining and <1-5 of bulk chemical production.

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (CC BY 4.0).