Celtic Catalysts:Tuning up the molecules to create game-changing technology within the pharmaceutical sector
CELTIC CATALYSTS has been working on the development of a chemical platform to help the global pharmaceutical industry to make key ingredients for their drugs in the most cost-effective manner for several years.
The specific issue addressed by the company is known as chirality. Many drugs, when viewed at a molecular level can exist in mirror image forms – just like your hands. However, as with hands, each mirror image form has different properties and will interact with cell receptors in the body in a different way. When the “fit” of these drug molecules is not good, there can be severe side-effects for the patient.
In 1992, the US Food and Drug Administration, which is the benchmark regulatory body for prescription and non-prescription drugs, introduced strict regulations for such drugs, resulting in the necessity for all pharmaceutical manufacturers to ensure that just the “good” mirror-image form of the drug is present.
The problem until now has been that catalysts often worked only with specific molecules. Celtic Catalysts claim to have come up with a chemical platform that enables catalysts to be easily “tuned” to suit the traits or idiosyncrasies of a given drug molecule.
Celtic Catalysts had three objectives when starting out in 2004. These were to develop a chemical platform that could generate useful new catalysts; to use the platform to generate and develop catalysts that outperformed existing ones; and to identify, develop and exploit industrial applications of these catalysts in the production of drugs in the development pipelines of pharmaceutical firms.
All three objectives have been met and the company’s catalysts have been integrated into the manufacturing process of a number of drugs in the development pipelines of some big pharmaceutical companies.