Biocatalysis has numerous benefits for pharmaceutical manufacturing, i.e. high chemo-, regio-, and stereo-selectivity; sustainable, safer materials; mild/safer reaction conditions; and multiple, cascaded reactions in one pot. However, its applicability in the pharmaceutical industry has been impeded. The limitation is due to the narrow range of chemistries with industry-ready enzymes, slow enzyme/process development which requires years of investment, low participation in early development route screening, lack of telescoped, multi-enzymatic reactions and little support for continuous operations. Through partnership with stakeholders within PIPS, we see a future where:
Initial research in the workstream has focused on speeding enzyme evolution through in silico predictive methods and microfluidics-based enzyme screening and on novel enzyme immobilisation methods to increase enzyme stability and reactivity.Current projects in the workstream include:
The manufacturing sector contributes to approximately 22% of Singapore's GDP. Of this percentage, 40% of activities is attributed to chemical and biomedical processes. With the ultimate goal of better responding to a VUCAH (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous, Hyper-connected) world and to boost competitiveness on existing and future manufacturing processes, companies from the same, or related industries, must endeavour to join forces to revisit and address gaps in current plant operations in the pre-competitive space. With a right mix of short term, implementable solutions to current challenges ("quick wins") and long term, more speculative ideas to address opportunities ("high risk-high reward"), the workstream targets research areas which are typically underserved by academia. However, it should be noted that the identified solutions could solve real world problems. Topics under this workstream include:
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