Last year Almac had added carbonyl reductase, transaminase, hydrolase, nitrilase, and nitrile hydratase enzyme screening kits to its biocatalysis business.
Almac said that the investment will be used primarily to focus around discovery of new biocatalytic platforms that can be implemented and scaled delivering cost effective processes to chiral intermediates.
Other areas of research will investigate hyper-activation of biocatalysts reducing enzyme loadings, as well as development of drivers for cofactor recycle and problems with equilibriums.
Almac Biocatalysis head Tom Moody said that the biocatalyst is now Almac’s choice for scale-up chemistry involving chirality as it provides efficient and clean processes.