New enzymes for chiral alcohols
synthesis with the addition of new ketoreductases (KRED) enzymes
for the stereoselective reduction of ketones.
Reactions in which ketones are reduced yield a broad variety of versatile chiral building blocks that can be used to synthesise single-isomer compounds, i.e. those that consist of just one of the two mirror-image conformations that are encountered in organic compounds. Chiral production technology has developed rapidly in the last few years due to an increasing demand for single stereoisomer compounds as active ingredients in pharmaceuticals.
The new enzymes bring to 25 the number of distinctly different enzymes for the production of single stereoisomers of a broad range of chiral alcohols.
Dr David Rozzell, BioCatalytics' CEO, said: "Stereoselective reduction is a key step in the production of many pharmaceutical intermediates." He added that each enzyme is available in amounts to support early stage research all the way through scale-up and manufacturing.
