4 pm
Thursday 14th April 2016
Physics Lecture Theatre (PLT)
Royal Society of Chemistry
Organic Industrial Chemistry Award Winner Seminar
Striving for the ultimate Process Chemistry synthesis – the importance of mechanistic understanding for reaction optimization Dr Debra J. Wallace
Department of Process Chemistry, Merck and Co
This seminar will discuss the development of two recent Merck compounds, Relebactam, a β‐
lactamase inhibitor being developed for treatment of serious antibiotic resistant bacterial
infections and Suvorexant a dual Orexin antagonist recently approved in the US and Japan for
treatment of sleep disorder. The talk will discuss synthetic development of the compounds,
from the Medicinal Chemistry route, followed by an initial scale‐up route suitable for
generating kilogram quantities of material. The requirements for an ideal manufacturing
route, including cost, robustness, minimal environmental impact and quality of product will
be outlined and these principles applied to show how a final approach, considered
appropriate for manufacturing implementation was discovered for both target molecules. In
each case a detailed mechanistic study of a key reaction will be presented to show how these
studies guided final optimization.