Trends in the application of Biocatalysis for production of drugs and drug metabolites

Adoption of biocatalysis by the pharmaceutical industry has been driven by the increasing complexity of new drug candidates and higher demand for optical purity of chiral molecules. Biocatalysis is not only being applied to synthesis of new chemical entities, but metabolic biocatalysis is proving a potent tool for drug discovery and development. Unlike biocatalytic synthesis of chiral molecules, metabolic biocatalysis has no direct counterpart in traditional chemistry. It has also been found that drug discovery can be enabled by metabolic biocatalysis. Elaboration of promising scaffolds using P450 enzyme systems makes functionalization of un-activated centers possible, giving access to new chemical entities which otherwise could not be prepared directly.