Peakdale are one of the major providers of medicinal chemistry, custom synthesis and computational chemistry services in Europe and its decision to increase its offering is further indication of the popularity of pharma companies to outsource processes to external parties.
The expansion closely follows the company's decision to extend its range of medicinal chemistry services earlier this year. The new additions will enable Peakdale to provide compounds with a specific starting point for hit discovery, resulting in savings for optimisation.
Central to this new extension is the ability now to perform a wider range of syntheses that includes lithiation and kinetically controlled asymmetric processes, high temperature hydrolysis, fluorinations by halogen exchange and palladium mediated couplings.
In addition to this Peakdale has also included two microwave reactors, which has its uses in combinatorial chemistry.
Microwaves affect polar molecules by causing them to rapidly align and realign with the magnetic field. The intense agitation causes rapid heating. Nonpolar species remain unaffected.
The first of these is a monomode system giving the capability for automated reaction screening and/or library synthesis at small scale (<20ml).
Validated synthetic routes can then be transferred to the second system, a multimode reactor that can produce up to 100g in a single run.
A microwave reactor is a monomode instrument in which the magnetron is separated from the reaction vessel by a narrow "corridor" or waveguide.
The monomode instrument has the advantage of having highly focused, even heating without any hot spots or variations in the electric field.
"Our investment in these facilities supports the development of our medicinal chemistry services and also gives us the ability to work with our growing customer base at more stages of their research," said Kim Morrison, CEO of >Peakdale Molecular.
"We offer a flexible and innovative response to our clients to ensure delivery within their timescales."
The new scale up laboratory has been designed to complement as well as expand Peakdale's existing kilo lab facility.
As well as increased capacity, the new equipment will speed up the development time for scaling up processes.
Another new addition is the inclusion of a new heater chiller now enables Peakdale to perform processes at -80C on a 30 litre scale allowing for multi-kilogram scale up of complex intermediates.