Classics in Pharmaceutical Process Chemistry

Post date: Aug 6, 2016 6:17:31 AM

Jen Alleva from Dave Macmillan's Group at Princeton prepared this group meeting talk titled "Classics in Pharmaceutical Process Chemistry"

https://www.princeton.edu/chemistry/macmillan/group-meetings/JLA_Pharmaceutical_Process_Chemistry.pdf. It's worth checking out! For other talks from the Macmillan Group, click here.

Process Chemistry is the term that describes synthesis on the industrial scale (waaaaay larger than the synthesis we typically do in undergraduate labs). When reactions are scaled-up, risks that weren't as dangerous on the small scale can suddenly become major factors (pressure + heat = bomb.... so, larger exothermic reactions = larger potential bombs). Things like purification using column chromatography also become big headaches on large scale as well. Chemists come up with innovative solutions when tackling scale-up - this field of ochem is called "process chemistry". This talk looks at the "classic" large-scale synthesis of several drugs, shown below (taken directly from one of Jen Alleva's slides).