Abstract

Application of Continuous Flow Chemistry in a Pharmaceutical Environment

Luigi La Vecchia, Director, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research

In recent years, continuous flow chemistry has emerged as a new technology for R&D chemists. Highly efficient mixing is combined with superior heat exchange and narrowly distributed, well defined, reaction times. Further advantages of flow reactors are the small reaction volume, which allows the possibility of running highly exothermic or hazardous reactions, even on a large scale. Flow chemistry automation enables chemists to rapidly find optimized conditions for a reaction on small scale. The optimised conditions can then be directly translated to the production of larger amounts by increasing the volume of the reactor (and hence flow rate) and/or prolonging the running time of the system. Reactions such as nitrations or flurinations often cause time delays during the scale-up of intermediates or final compounds for medicinal chemistry projects, because considerable time is required for safety evaluation and, if necessary, modification of the procedure so that it can be run in a safe manner. The presentation will describe the application of Continuous Flow Chemistry for scaling-up exothermic or hazardous reactions.