I can’t begin to count the number of aryl boronic acids I’ve made and/or worked with over the years. These versatile intermediates will forever be part of the synthetic organic chemist’s toolbox. You would be hard pushed to find an organic chemist that hasn’t run a Suzuki- Miyaura cross coupling reaction at some stage in

Last weekend, I attended a celebration party for my PhD supervisor Professor Nicholas J. Turner on the occasion of him being elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society. This is a prestigious accolade only bestowed upon a few very worthy scientists including 85 Nobel laureates. Nick was elected as FRS in 2020 but due

Scientific Update to Welcome New Technical Associate for North America & Asia Pacific – Dr Ben Littler Scientific Update is delighted to announce the appointment of Dr Ben Littler, formerly Executive Director  Process Chemistry for Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Ben will join the team at Scientific Update in August 2022 as Technical Associate, North America & Asia

To celebrate International Women’s Day 2022  – Helen Spencer (Consultant BDM and Marketer) asked Scientific Update Ltd joint owners and Directors Dr Claire Francis and Hannah May – a few questions about their career journey. Q: Do you think it is important to celebrate International Women’s Day? A: CF: Yes, for me it is an

In March 2022, Dr Will Watson will be hanging up his laser pointer and commencing on new adventures as he starts his well earned retirement. Will has been a hugely valued member of the Scientific Update team since he joined in May 2000. During his 21+ years at the company he has trained more than

Back in August I posted a scheme for the synthesis of a late-stage intermediate towards PF-06826647, a compound identified by Pfizer as a potent and selective tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK-2) inhibitor. I asked if you could identify reagents or intermediates A, B and D. Below are the answers! You can read more here in the full

The Scientific Update Team had a brilliant evening having dinner and listening to the Jazz on The Pantiles in Royal Tunbridge Wells.  To be together celebrating that we are still very much here and have survived the most challenging 18 months in our history, was really rather special. We can’t wait to see you all

The scheme below shows the synthesis of a late-stage intermediate towards PF-06826647, a compound identified by Pfizer as a potent and selective tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK-2) inhibitor that has entered phase 2 clinical trials for the treatment of autoimmune diseases. Can you identify intermediates A, B and D? Answers and a reference will be posted

Last month I posted a scheme for the synthesis of a late-stage intermediate towards AZD9833, a compound identified by AstraZeneca as a selective estrogen receptor degrader (SERD) and antagonist that is currently in phase 2b clinical trials for the treatment of ER+ breast cancer. I asked if you could identify reagents or intermediates A-C. Below are

A couple of interesting papers published recently on aryl iodination. I sure I don’t need to reiterate how useful iodinated intermediates are in synthesis- most significantly their heightened reactivity in metal catalysed cross coupling chemistry,1 and, more recently their application as organocatalysts in hypervalent iodine chemistry.2 As is common in synthetic science, the intermediates you