Chemspec goes Dutch
Chemspec Europe fine chemicals exhibition headed back to Amsterdam. Man Chem reports on some of the new products and services that were highlighted at this year\'s show
Chemspec Europe fine chemicals exhibition headed back to Amsterdam. Man Chem reports on some of the new products and services that were highlighted at this year's show
Amsterdam welcomed Chemspec Europe back this June after a break of three years, and the RAI exhibition centre was once again host to many of the world's speciality chemical companies and a wide range of niche operators.
Among the exhibiting companies this year was Switzerland's Helsinn, which announced the imminent opening of two new facilities at its plant in Biasca. The API and high-potency AI facilities will be available for custom synthesis as well as in-house use. 'We want to work at the highest possible level,' explained senior manager, market and sales, Dr Roger Laforce. 'The last steps of API processing are carried out under Class 100,000 cleanroom conditions. The new facility has been constructed to higher specifications than are currently in force for API manufacture. We want to operate at a standard that will be valid five years from now, and we see the trend in demand from regulators and customers will be towards this.'
Cross-contamination prevention
There are five separate, isolated reactor bays, with a total capacity of 40m3, with five centrifuges and two dryer suites for processing. Each is in an isolated area to prevent cross-contamination. 'It was not hugely more expensive to construct than a traditional facility,' Laforce explained, 'because the difference is mostly in the walls.' The company has been receiving increasing requests for multi-tonne quantities of high-potency compounds, so the second new facility has been constructed to accommodate this.
Helsinn defines a high potency compound as one that has a dosage level below 1mg. Such drugs are increasingly being seen in the CNS, antihypertensive, anticholesterol and dermatological areas, but the company cannot, for GMP reasons, as yet make cytotoxics, beta-lactams or hormones.
Isolator systems, notably glove boxes, are used to guarantee the necessary levels of operator exposure are adhered to. The isolator allows the reactor to be charged with solids, which pose more of a problem than liquids because of the dust they can generate. A balance is incorporated into the addition port, and the whole process, from reactor through filter-dryer, takes place in a succession of isolators. Helsinn believes this offering is unique within the custom manufacturing sector.
ChiroTech was exhibiting in its latest incarnation as part of Dow. At the beginning of June, Dow's takeover of Ascot, ChiroTech's parent company, was made wholly unconditional, and the companies are now in the process of combining their businesses. Ascot's four businesses, ChiroTech, Haltermann Custom Processing, Haltermann Products and Mitchell Cotts, are to be integrated into Dow's custom and fine chemicals global business unit that also includes Dow Contract Manufacturing Services and Angus Chemical. Dow believes ChiroTech's expertise in
chiral catalysts and biocatalysts is a particularly good fit for its growing biochemical and biotechnology businesses. The businesses are expected to trade under the ChiroTech and Haltermann names because of their existing reputation.
A carbohydrate-based drug discovery programme has been launched by Synthon Chiragenics. Synthon is to work with biology partners to advance its own drug candidates into clinical screening and trials. The candidates have been developed using the company's carbohydrate-based chiral chemistry technology, which originated from founder and chief scientific officer Rawle Hollingsworth's laboratory at Michigan State University.
It will focus on two key areas of chemistry: oxazolidinones and nucleoside analogues. The company is also making available its proprietary technologies, advanced molecular compounds and intellectual property on a contract basis.
Lonza highlight edits palladium catalyst technologies at the show. Palladium-mediated coupling reactions have become important tools in synthetic organic chemistry, notably for the functionalisation of aryl molecules with carbon monoxide to give carbonyl compounds.
The most familiar of these are carboxylic esters, but the procedure was only seldom applied to heteroaryl compounds, in part because the iodo- and bromo-derivatives needed as starting materials were expensive.
Lonza has developed a method that uses aryl chlorides as the starting material, yielding a range of intermediates with pharmaceutical applications. Similarly, carboxamides have been prepared by the amidocarbonylation of chloropyrimidines on a scale of up to 2kg.
The company also explained the results of a strategic review of its business. It is to focus on being a life sciences-driven company, because this is where it believes the best opportunities for long-term growth lie. As a result, the company has already committed to a four-fold expansion of fermentation volumes in the mammalian cell cultures technology part of its biologics businesses. It is currently evaluating the need for additional microbial fermentation capacity to deal with the expected growth in demand for biopharmaceuticals. In its more traditional organic chemistry business, the company is extending its production capacity and capabilities with a number of advanced, dedicated installations to meet customer requirements for increasingly complex custom-manufactured molecules.
Chiral chemistry
Rhodia's phosphorus and performance derivatives enterprise has expanded its range of phosphines as a result of partnerships with the Japanese companies Nippon Chemical and Hokko Chemical. This will expand its range of phosphine derivatives for the pharmaceutical intermediates markets.
Rhodia ChiRex and Synetix, part of the ICI group, announced that they have reached an agreement for the joint development and manufacture of pharmaceutical ingredients and fine chemicals. Synetix's recently-formed Chiral Technologies division (SCT) has immobilised Rhodia ChiRex's proprietary Co-SALEN catalyst, used in the company's hydrolytic resolution technology, which was licensed from Harvard University in 1986. Synetix will now manufacture commercial quantities of the immobilised catalyst. Ian Shott, president of Rhodia ChiRex's manufacturing division, said, 'Rhodia ChiRex will now be able to cost-effectively manufacture a wider variety of chiral chemicals and expand our outreach to customers in more market sectors.'
Synetix also announced a distribution agreement for Raney hydrogenation catalysts with WR Grace. Grace's manufacturing and technical know-how in the field of Raney catalysts will be combined with Synetix's applications and process know-how, services and worldwide sales network to expand services within Europe, Asia and South America, outside Grace's traditional base in north America.
A new exhibitor at the show was Chemparc, which was created for the development of the chemical industry around the Lacq natural gas fields in south-west France. Financed by local government, the Chambers of commerce in Pau and Bayonne, TotalFinaElf and Sobegi, the new name of Chemparc is the culmination of 25 years of development which has led to 14 international chemical groups setting up production plants on the site. The costs of services and resources are shared between companies, so even small fine chemical plants can benefit, at low cost, from the site's infrastructure. It has rail sidings connected to the national network and the nearby port of Bayonne.
Sumitomo Chemical Japan was promoting a new plant for the manufacture of cyanogen chloride derivatives, which was opened in May of this year. The derivatives are used as pharmaceutical intermediates. The new plant is situated at the company's site in Nihama, Japan, and is based on Sumitomo's captive generation of cyanogen chloride on the site.
It also announced the introduction of a novel selective amidation technology, which the company claims gives quantitative yields of chiral amide compounds and complexes, as well as oligopeptides.
The supercritical carbon dioxide plant being built at its Consett, UK site was highlighted by Thomas Swan. A wide range of reactions can be carried out using the technology, including hydrogenation, Friedel Crafts chemistry, hydroformylations and etherifications. The company claims hydrogenations in SC CO2 are cleaner, faster and more selective, and the range of substrates that can be hydrogenated includes alkenes, aldehydes, nitro compounds, ketones and oximes. SC CO2 is non-reactive, clean, 'green', inexpensive and simple to remove from reaction products as it evaporates when temperature and pressure are returned to normal.
A different form of hydrogenation technology was featured on the Hickson & Welch stand. The company has two Buss loop reactors at its Castleford, UK site, with a total capacity of over 20,000t p.a. Its areas of commercial catalytic hydrogenation expertise include the reduction of nitro groups to amines, particularly chloronitros; reductive and non-reductive nickel-catalysed alkylations; ring saturations; and double bond reductions.
Its hydrogenation loops are available for contract manufacture use, with both heterogeneous and homogeneous catalyst production systems.
Ubichem was promoting the new pilot plant it is constructing in Budapest, Hungary. Operating to cGMP standards, it should be commissioned in the third quarter of this year. The company now has 16 chemists working in Budapest, and has lined up further key staff to bring experience of cGMP scale-up and production to the new plant.
Ubichem is also involved in several collaborations with research teams to develop new catalytic systems for metal-mediated coupling reactions, as well as its active research project into the application of esterases in the production of chiral compounds.
Following the success of this year's show, Chemspec Europe be in Basel next year, the city at the heart of the Swiss chemical industry. The show is to be held at the Messe Basel on 26 and 27 June.