Abstract
Recent advances have allowed semi-synthetic production of complex pharmaceutical compounds and commodity chemicals by combining chemical and biological approaches. This approach offers several advantages including synthesis of chirally pure precursors for drugs, design of greener and more sustainable production routes for commodity chemicals by eliminating the use of hazardous chemicals and generation of waste and improving overall process efficiencies by reducing total number of steps involved in synthesis. In this review, we will discuss in detail the synthesis of three pharmaceuticals - simvastatin, artemisinin, and warfarin - and two commodity chemicals - β-methyl-δ-valerolactone and butadiene, all of which have wide applications in the pharmaceutical and polymer industry.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | 253 |
| Pages (from-to) | 35-41 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Current Opinion in Chemical Engineering |
| Volume | 10 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2015 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Center for Sustainable Polymers CHE-1413862 .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd.
