Pharmaceutical synthesis can benefit greatly from the selectivity gains associated with enzymatic catalysis. Here, we report an efficient biocatalytic process to replace a recently implemented rhodium-catalyzed asymmetric enamine hydrogenation for the large-scale manufacture of the antidiabetic compound sitagliptin. Starting from an enzyme that had the catalytic machinery to perform the desired chemistry but lacked any activity toward the prositagliptin ketone, we applied a substrate walking, modeling, and mutation approach to create a transaminase with marginal activity for the synthesis of the chiral amine; this variant was then further engineered via directed evolution for practical application in a manufacturing setting. The resultant biocatalysts showed broad applicability toward the synthesis of chiral amines that previously were accessible only via resolution. This work underscores the maturation of biocatalysis to enable efficient, economical, and environmentally benign processes for the manufacture of pharmaceuticals.

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High-throughput experimentation (HTE) has revolutionized the pharmaceutical industry, most notably allowing for rapid screening of compound libraries against therapeutic targets. The past decade has also witnessed the extension of HTE principles toward the realm of small-molecule process chemistry. Today, most major pharmaceutical companies have created dedicated HTE groups within their process development teams, invested in automation technology to accelerate screening, or both. The industry's commitment to accelerating process development has led to rapid innovations in the HTE space. This review will deliver an overview of the latest best practices currently taking place within our teams in process chemistry by sharing frequently studied transformations, our perspective for the next several years in the field, and manual and automated tools to enable experimentation. A series of case studies are presented to exemplify state-of-the-art workflows developed within our laboratories.

Over the past decade, chemists have embraced visible-light photoredox catalysis due to its remarkable ability to activate small molecules. Broadly, these methods employ metal complexes or organic dyes to convert visible light into chemical energy. Unfortunately, the excitation of widely utilized Ru and Ir chromophores is energetically wasteful as ∼25% of light energy is lost thermally before being quenched productively. Hence, photoredox methodologies require high-energy, intense light to accommodate said catalytic inefficiency. Herein, we report photocatalysts which cleanly convert near-infrared (NIR) and deep red (DR) light into chemical energy with minimal energetic waste. We leverage the strong spin–orbit coupling (SOC) of Os(II) photosensitizers to directly access the excited triplet state (T 1 ) with NIR or DR irradiation from the ground state singlet (S 0 ). Through strategic catalyst design, we access a wide range of photoredox, photopolymerization, and metallaphotoredox reactions which usually require 15–50% higher excitation energy. Finally, we demonstrate superior light penetration and scalability of NIR photoredox catalysis through a mole-scale arene trifluoromethylation in a batch reactor.

High-throughput (HT) techniques built upon laboratory automation technology and coupled to statistical experimental design and parallel experimentation have enabled the acceleration of chemical process development across multiple industries. HT technologies are often applied to interrogate wide, often multidimensional experimental spaces to inform the design and optimization of any number of unit operations that chemical engineers use in process development. In this review, we outline the evolution of HT technology and provide a comprehensive overview of how HT automation is used throughout different industries, with a particular focus on chemical and pharmaceutical process development. In addition, we highlight the common strategies of how HT automation is incorporated into routine development activities to maximize its impact in various academic and industrial settings.

The direct introduction of either a nitrogen or oxygen atom adjacent to a carbonyl group in a catalytic, enantioselective manner using both chiral Lewis acid and Lewis base catalysis has been described recently. The enantiomerically enriched products of these reactions, such as alpha-amino acids, represent fundamental building blocks for the construction of complex natural products and other important bioactive molecules. This Minireview provides a synopsis of this ever-growing field and highlights some of the challenges that still remain.

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1-Amino-3-siloxy-1,3-butadienes represent a novel class of heteroatom-containing dienes with several useful properties. These dienes can be prepared efficiently by deprotonation of readily available vinylogous amides with potassium hexamethylsilazide, followed by silylation of the corresponding potassium enolates. This protocol has been found to be quite general for the preparation of various dienes containing different silyl and amino groups. Amino siloxy dienes readily undergo [4 + 2] cycloadditions with a wide range of electron-deficient dienophiles. The reactions generally occur under very mild conditions to afford the corresponding [4 + 2] adducts in high yields and with complete regioselectivity. High endo selectivity is observed in the case of N-phenylmaleimide and methacrolein. Other cycloadducts are usually obtained as mixtures of endo/exo diastereomers. The cycloadducts are versatile synthetic intermediates. They can be subjected to deprotonation, reduction, and Wittig olefination without any hydrolysis or elimination. In addition, the elimination of the amino group can be cleanly accomplished under acidic conditions leading to the formation of enones. A variety of substituted cyclohexenones can be prepared by this procedure.