Chiral amines are important building blocks used in 40% pharmaceutical products, 20% of crop protection compounds and are high value chemical intermediates. Current synthetic methods use wasteful resolution processes. This project will improve manufacturing efficiency by developing catalytic (transfer) hydrogenation methods to make specific types of chiral amines. The project aims to develop and exploit new catalysts, to develop solid supported variants of these, and use them in novel flow reactors. This allows reduced effective loadings of the metal catalysts, efficient metal recovery and switch from batch to continuous processing. The project generates new asymmetric catalysts, opens new market opportunities for flow reactors, and fulfils high demand for chiral amines required by end user companies made using more efficient processes to lower cost, reduce waste, improve quality and availability.

An estimated 70 - 105 million Americans and around 20% of European adults suffer from severe chronic pain caused by non-malignant (e.g., HIV, post-herpetic or diabetic neuropathy, arthritis and lower back pain) and malignant (70%-90% of advanced cancer cases) conditions. Current therapies are inadequate in 75% of cases of chronic non-malignant pain and cause side effects in 80% of opioid treated patients; side effects include constipation, nausea, breathing problems addiction and accidental overdose. In 2006, 250,000 US patients required emergency hospital admission for pain drug related complications. We have developed a new nanomedicine based pain drug which is effective in animal studies and works when taken by mouth or by injection. As we are targeting a different receptor to conventional pain drugs, the drug is predicted to have fewer side effects. The compound we are developing does not work without it being put in nanoparticles.