Biocatalysis in the Swiss Manufacturing Environment

Abstract

Biocatalysis has undergone a remarkable transition in the last two decades, from being considered a niche technology to playing a much more relevant role in organic synthesis today. Advances in molecular biology and bioinformatics, and the decreasing costs for gene synthesis and sequencing contribute to the growing success of engineered biocatalysts in industrial applications [1]. However, the incorporation of biocatalytic process steps in new or established manufacturing routes is not always straightforward. To realize the full synthetic potential of biocatalysis for the sustainable manufacture of chemical building blocks, it is therefore important to regularly analyze the success factors and existing hurdles for the implementation of enzymes in large scale small molecule synthesis. Building on our previous analysis of biocatalysis in the Swiss manufacturing environment [2], we present a follow-up study on how the industrial biocatalysis situation in Switzerland has evolved in the last four years. Considering the current industrial landscape, we record recent advances in biocatalysis in Switzerland as well as give suggestions where enzymatic transformations may be valuably employed to address some of the societal challenges we face today, particularly in the context of the current Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Biocatalysis as Key to Sustainable Industrial Chemistry

“…[88][89][90][91][92] For example, from a number of chemical and pharmaceutical companies in Switzerland there are indications that biocatalysis implementation is on the move in chemical manufacture, as every year an increasing number of companies consider the use of enzymes in chemical synthesis. [93] The privilege of the inherent chirality and evolvability of biocatalysts is especially valuable for developing advantageous reaction platforms with improved selectivity and sustainability for industrial sectors in which catalytic asymmetric synthesis is essential for manufacturing. Examples of the growing number of biocatalytic reaction platforms applied in asymmetric synthesis at industrial scale include ammonia addition, oxidation and cyclization, which are illustrated below.…”

Chemo‐Enzymatic One‐Pot Two‐Step Functionalization of 1,2,3,4‐Tetrahydroisoquinolines by Monoamine Oxidase‐Ugi‐Joullié Reaction Sequence

“…Progress in enzyme discovery enabled the rapid development of enzyme panels, which encourages synthetic laboratories to evaluate enzymatic transformations in their synthetic routes. As a consequence, an increasing number of chemical and pharmaceutical companies are considering to use enzymes to optimize synthetic routes [3] . As part of this strategy, biocatalysis has been tested and increasingly implemented in chemical development programs in recent years and the trend indicates that it will become an inevitable tool [4–6] …”

Molecular Transformer-aided Biocatalysed Synthesis Planning

“…2 These advantages provide a large number of opportunities documented by the increased corpus of scientific and patents publications related to enzymes, as well as their increased use in industrial applications. 3,4 It is no surprise if enzymes are one of the key enablers of sustainable chemical processes, with a growing interest in their use at an industrial scale to convert waste into valuable raw materials. 5 Although the ability to use enzymatic reactions to catalyse organic synthesis of chemical compounds gained widespread attention for large scale production, [6][7][8] enzymes are still far from being widely adopted in daily synthetic laboratory works.…”