Abstract

Recent Progress and Case Studies of Flow Chemistry Technology in Small Molecule API Process R&D and Manufacturing

Chao Liu, Head, WuXi STA

WuXi STA is a pioneer player in flow chemistry, and conducted 1st GMP production campaign in 2016, and then built 1st continuous manufacturing plant in 2022. To date, flow chemistry is applied in 1000+ steps and 6 approved drug. Various reaction types are available in toolbox from laboratory to commercial scale manufacturing, for example photochemistry, gas-liquid reaction, low temperature metal organic chemistry, nitrogen-rich reactions, electrochemistry, hydrogenation, enzymatic reaction, also high temperature/pressure reaction. Hereby, we introduced recent progress in pharmaceutical manufacturing, from concept, distribution of process types in actual implementations, to kg-ton scale nonGMP/GMP production cases of photo benzylic bromination, ozonolysis, carbonylation by CO₂ etc.