New Solvias chiral ligand kit launched

The kit contains several new types of ligand families that are unique to Solvias​. The most recent of these families is Solphos, which are binap ligands that provide new benefits in certain hydrogenation reactions.

"This kit offers manufacturers 3-4 times the choice of ligands than any other company, and can be used on over 10 processes worldwide,"​ said Marc Thommen, project leader, chiral ligands, Solvias.

In addition, the kit now contains both chiral enantiomers, giving manufacturers the option to work either in enantioselective (left-hand) mode or diastereoselective (right-hand) mode. Previous kits have only supplied ligands in enantioseletive mode.

Drug compounds often exist as asymmetric (right- and left-handed) mirror images (enantiomers), but usually only one of the structures exhibits the desired pharmacological activity. If a drug can be made one-handed, or chiral, it generally means that smaller doses are needed and potential waste effects from the other form can be avoided.

The company has launched the kit in response to growing demand in API manufacturing and is also developing two more ligand families that will be commercially available by early 2006.

All of Solvias ligands are designed for manufacturing purposes and are scaled and air stable, thus the need for a glove box is eliminated.

They are designed to allow rapid screening of chiral catalysts, are effective in numerous applications and importantly, are available on a production scale at short notice.

There are not a lot of industrially applicable catalysts commercially available. Many work well on the bench scale, but technical and cost issues often preclude scaling up to the level needed for production.

"Solvias is the only company that can provide these types of ligands on a complete supply chain from early screening through to development and production,"​ said Thommen.

There is a dedicated team of 15 chemists on staff to deal with customer support issues, he said.