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| December 20, 2005 |
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| Putting Chiral Compound Technologies into full use, focus on non-natural amino acid | |
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The Fine Chemicals Group of Nagase & Co., Ltd. is currently accelerating its business rollouts making use of business models based not only on trading functions but also its process development functions (research and development center) and production functions (Nagase ChemTex) in its pharmaceutical actives and intermediates businesses. It places special focus on development of unique Chiral compound production technologies; its biocatalysts and asymmetric chemical catalysts are known to be unique. Among these asymmetric chemical catalysts, in particular the non-natural amino acid production using phase-transfer catalyst, which it has developed jointly with Professor Keiji Maruoka of Kyoto University (Nagase owns the material/application patents), is advancing steadily. Using this catalyst, it is possible to manufacture α-monosubstitution non-natural amino acid, which was difficult to compound before, α, α-disubstitution non-natural amino acid and various other types of amino acids by controlling optically active points in two locations, phases α and β, using glycine, alanine and other inexpensive amino acid derivatives as raw materials. It has already started commercial production of non-natural amino acid. Furthermore, the group also owns a microorganism library of more than 7,000 stocks of biocatalysts, including the biocatalysts accumulated by Nagase ChemTex, Japan's first industrial enzyme manufacturer. This makes highly efficient industrial production possible through selection of specific biocatalysts that are optimal for any given target compound, improvement of enzyme productivity by gene manipulation and development of economical bioprocesses. Exceptionally excellent characteristics can be achieved for processes such as microorganism reduction, production of hydrolytic enzymes, epoxide hydratase and so on. In the future, the group intends to promote application of each technology and reinforce the business models for providing high-value added products in the entire range of fields from development of new drugs to production through business development based on customer needs as well as dispatch of new proprietary technologies. (From The Chemical Daily) |
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