PFI-RP: Organic Photoredox Catalysts for Improving Commercial Pharmaceutical Production

Colorado State University, Fort Collins CO

Investigators

Abstract

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation – Research Partnerships (PFI-RP) project is the establishment of a new technology enabling the pharmaceutical industry to expedite drug discovery and improve manufacturing capabilities. This technology facilitates access to new chemical reactivity that will provide enhanced abilities to synthesize pharmaceutical products while also allowing milder and safer reaction conditions. The capabilities of this technology to beneficially impact pharmaceutical syntheses will be identified and developed, ultimately providing a needed methodology for rapid and economical drug discovery and pharmaceutical manufacturing. This work will enhance the scientific understanding of using energy from light to drive chemical transformations. Through this work, the societal need for new and affordable medicines will be addressed through commercialization of this breakthrough chemical technology. A catalyst technology implemented across the patent life of a single drug has a commercial potential exceeding $100M. This collaborative effort also supports the training and education of student researchers through a multidisciplinary effort. Student researchers will be exposed to industrial research environments and processes and commercialization concepts that will help build a stronger foundation for becoming future leaders in innovation and entrepreneurship. The proposed project will establish a new catalyst technology for the reduction of arenes in medicinally important, chemical transformations. Catalysis reactions often require harsh reaction conditions or unsustainable, expensive, and toxic precious metal complexes. This project will develop a new class of organic molecules as catalysts that use light energy to perform reactions under mild reaction conditions. This team will use a combination of computational chemistry, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to identify improved catalyst designs and discovery of new chemical reactions. Specifically, the team will establish new capabilities for chemical synthesis that have been largely underdeveloped by the pharmaceutical industry. Success in achieving the goals of this work will result in new photoredox catalysts and the discovery of new chemical reactivities. Overcoming the technical challenges of this work will accelerate the adoption of photoredox catalysis in the pharma and chemical industries and academia. Furthermore, this project will extend artificial intelligence and machine learning to develop predictive models for accelerated catalyst and reaction discovery. Lastly, capabilities to scale photoredox catalyzed reactions will be developed to promote reaction efficiency throughout the broader chemical community. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.