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“Inconvenient Truths about Solid Form Landscapes”

The keynote speaker at our recent ‘Polymorphism and Crystallisation’ Conference in Boston was Dr Susan M. Reutzel-Edens from Eli Lilly, whose name will very familiar to anyone working in the solid form / crystallisation and she gave what one delegate described as “the best talk I have ever heard”. Now I can’t entirely agree with

3 cocrystal API’s now on the market

There are now 3 cocrystal API’s (Entresto, Suglat, and Depakote) on the market meaning that this area is no longer just an academic curiosity. Entresto is a cocrystal formed from the sodium salts of sacubitril and valsartan, but I do not know whether that is affected by the current furore over N-nitrosoamine impurities found in

Interview with Dr David Leahy, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, USA

Dr John Studley, Scientific Director at Scientific Update recently spoke to Dr David Leahy, Takeda, USA ahead of his presentaion at the 2019 Catalysis in the Pharmaceutical and Fine Chemical Industry Conference in Lucerne, Switzerland. David will talk about “A Pharmaceutical Industry Perspective on Sustainable Metal Catalysis”- following on from his paper published recently in Organometallics

Interview with Prof. Ben List, Max Planck Inst., Germany

Dr John Studley, Scientific Director at Scientific Update recently spoke to Professor Ben List, Max Planck Institute, Germany ahead of his Key Note lecture at the 2019 Catalysis in the Pharmaceutical and Fine Chemical Industry Conference, in Lucerne, Switzerland. Ben will talk about “how we have designed and developed a novel class of extremely reactive

Fluorine and sulfur- an old combination with a new lease of life

The use of fluorine and fluorine-containing functional groups in medicinal chemistry, agrochemicals and advanced materials has grown over the past fifty years.1 Not surprisingly this increase in utility tracks with notable developments and refinements in safe and accessible synthetic methodology, both on the discovery and development front and in subsequent manufacturing. A recent example that caught

Osmium (Os, Element 76)

Osmium, a group 8 d-block transition metal discovered in 1803 by the English chemist Smithson Tennant, is the rarest of the stable elements. Concentrations in the Earth’s crust are around 50 parts per trillion. The metal is found in nature uncombinrd or alloyed with its neighbour, iridium, in the alloys iridosmine or osmiridium. Around 500Kg

Intermolecular reductive C-N cross coupling of nitroarenes and boronic acids by P(III) / P(V)=O catalysis

When approaching the synthesis of an aryl- or heteroaryl- amine most people would turn to a suitable transition metal (Pd, Cu or Ni) catalysed C-N cross-coupling reaction- most likely a Buchwald-Hartwig reaction, or, if this has limited success, Ullmann or Chan-Evans-Lam couplings.1 Photoredox approaches using aryloxy amides as a source of amidyl radicals began a trend

Some Good News from the UK (let’s not mention Brexit)

At last some good news from the UK, we are delighted to hear that the Pfizer Sandwich UK site is recruiting!  They are seeking new colleagues to join their Chemical R&D department in a number of areas to support their rapidly growing global portfolio.  These roles have been created to assist acceleration of early Active

Xenon- the light at the end of the tunnel

Xenon (Xe, Element 54) Xenon, from the Greek for ‘stranger’ is a colourless, odourless group 18 noble gas. Discovered in 1898 in London by William Ramsay, xenon is produced commercially by the fractional distillation of liquid air and is isolated as a by-product of the cryogenic production of oxygen and nitrogen. The concentration in the

The Balz-Schiemann Reaction

Aryl- and heteroaryl- diazonium tetrafluoroborate salts, prepared by diazotization of an aniline in the presence of HBF4, are unique in that in many cases they are sufficiently stable to isolate. Thermal decomposition of these salts at elevated temperatures results in fluoro-dediazoniation and formation of the corresponding aryl or heteroaryl fluoride- the Balz-Schiemann reaction.1a,bRadiolabelled 18F compounds

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