Abstract

Flow Synthesis of Pharmaceuticals: Feeding into an Emerging Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Industry in South Africa

Darren Riley, Seniour Lecturer, University of Pretoria

In the pharmaceutical industry drug discovery groups must continually aim to develop new and innovative treatments for diseases, but at the same time drugs need to be readily available and affordable to those who need them. A key problem the industry faces is that synthetic chemistry both on small and large scales has become reliant on batch processing technologies that have remained essentially unchanged over the last hundred years. The last decade has however seen growing interest from both from academia and big pharmaceutical manufacturers like Merck Sharp Dohme, Pfizer, and Novartis in the use of continuous flow chemistry to overcome some of these shortfalls. To date the technology has been viewed as somewhat disruptive with respect to batch-based manufacturing and presented will be highlights from our endeavours to feed into an emerging pharmaceutical manufacturing industry based in South Africa which is not constrained by existing infrastructure. The development of new flow routes to pharmaceuticals such as Celecoxib, Clozapine, Donepezil, Fluoxetine and Tenofovir Diisoproxil Fumarate will be shown. Routes developed have in many cases shown significant improvements in yields and reaction times, and in several instances have allowed the development of greener process routes.