Biocatalysis, chemocatalysis, enzyme kits, chiral, fermentation, molecular biology, purification, route selection

Keyword

Biocatalysis / selectAZyme™

Almac has developed the selectAZyme^TM platform as the primary source of recombinant enzymes used in customer projects and for customer evaluation.

Almac has cultivated considerable biocatalysis expertise and now offers a range of services in this area including selectAZyme^TM enzyme panels for both in-house and customer screening, biocatalysis process development and scale-up, fermentation and molecular biology, biocatalyst mediated purification of impure compounds and metabolite synthesis. We also offer a range of chiral building blocks that are not easily obtained by conventional chemistry.

Almac provides a diverse A-Z range of enzymes including reductases, transaminases, hydrolases, nitrilases and many others.

In collaboration with our customers, Almac selects the optimum enzyme to provide an efficient and cost effective process. Almac enzymes are used in the A-Z of applications from medicinal chemistry to full production and in the manufacture of specialty chemicals.

The key strength of selectAZyme^TM enzymes is the high selectivity of the chemical reactions they catalyze, with very high chemo-, regio- and stereoselectivities possible.

Why Biocatalysis

Biocatalysis is quite simply the use of enzymes or microorganisms to effect desired chemical transformations. The active constituent of a biocatalyst is always an enzyme.As nature’s catalysts, enzymes have evolved over millions of years to carry out the very specific chemical reactions of life. Some of the oldest chemical reactions known to man employ biocatalysis, such as in the production of cheese, beer and wine.

Biocatalysts can facilitate reactions that are difficult to achieve through traditional chemical means. They are able to discriminate between quite subtle differences in shape and functionality, either within a given molecule or in a mixture of molecules. This allows selective chemistry, for example, regioselectively transforming a single functionality (out of several) in a single molecule or, more importantly, effecting the biotransformation of one isomer in a racemic mixture, facilitating its separation into the component isomers. Enzymes can also be used in asymmetric processes to convert prochiral precursors to optically pure products, for instance chiral alcohols and amines.

Biocatalysis technology has now become accepted as one of the first choice methods in the fine chemical and pharmaceutical industry. Given the severe pressure to lower costs, minimise waste and shorten existing syntheses, the industry is in need of economic, scaleable and reliable processes for manufacturing chiral APIs and intermediates. This need has resulted in process chemists utilising their skills at the interface of chemistry and biology, and embracing biocatalysts and biocatalytic processes in organic synthesis. This paradigm shift has resulted in biocatalysis becoming the work-horse of the chemists’ tool-box for chiral chemistry.

Biocatalysis is the first choice for Almac for any scale-up chemistry involving chirality