Skip to main content

PMI Prediction and Bayesian Optimization: Two Tools with One Goal Towards the Development of ‘Greener-by-Design’ Synthesis of APIs

2024 Data Science & Modeling for Green Chemistry Award

The Bristol Myers Squibb team received the innaugral Data Sciences and Modeling Award for Green Chemistry award. 

Richard Fox, Jun Li, Jacob Albrecht, Jason Stevens, Jose Tabora, Alina Borovika, and Benjamin Shields (BMS) partnered with Jose Garido (Princeton), Professor Ryan Adams (Princeton), and Professor Abigail Doyle (UCLA) to showcase two tools that are combined to arrive at greener processes during the design, development, and optimization of synthetic transformations. A process mass intensity (PMI) prediction app that utilizes predictive analytics and historical data of large-scale syntheses to help enable better decision-making during ideation and route design was coupled with a subsequent Experimental Design via Bayesian optimization application (i.e., EDBO/EDBO+) to accelerate the optimization of the subsequent individual chemical transformations was included. Taken together, these two tools enable process scientists to incorporate state-of-the-art open-access data science tools and algorithms into both defining their overall project strategies and conducting their daily laboratory experimentation to accelerate the advancement of “greener-by-design” outcomes.

Highlighting a real clinical candidate, the authors illustrated a quantitative method for the prediction of potential efficiencies centered around Process Mass Intensity (PMI) of proposed synthetic routes prior to their evaluation in a laboratory. This allows scientists to select the most efficient option prior to development and arrive at a holistically more sustainable chemical synthesis to a molecule moving into manufacturing. Following predictions for PMI across different synthetic sequences, the researchers rapidly identify the optimized conditions for a particular transformation using a machine learning Bayesian optimization (BO)n approach to explore chemical space and identify more sustainable reaction conditions with fewer experiments and resources. For the specific example included in their work, a process that yielded 70% yield and 91%ee through traditional one factor at a time (OFAT) using 500 experiments, was surpassed by the EDBO+ platform, providing 80% yield and 91%ee in only 24 experiments. Both technology platforms are open source and available for researchers at no charge, increasing the potential for adoption and use by others.

More about the Award

The Data Science and Modeling for Green Chemistry award recognizes innovation or excellence in the research and development of computational tools that empower users to effectively design, implement, and evaluate green processes with reduced process mass intensity, waste, health and safety impact, and other aspirational improvements. The award was open to both academic and industrial applicants, and a number of excellent nominations were received for consideration. 

This annual award is presented at the Green Chemistry & Engineering Confernece where presenters are invited to share their innovations. 

Pictured: Jason Stevens, Associate Scientific Director at BMS, accepts 2024 Pete Dunn Award from Isamir Martinez (ACSGCI) and ACS GCIPR 2024 Co-Chair, Dan Bailey of Takeda.

BMS accepts Data Science & Modeling for Green Chemistry award

Continue reading

Development of a short and eco-friendly asymmetric manufacturing process for Spiroketone CD 7659

2024 Peter J. Dunn Award for Green Chemistry & Engineering Impact in the Pharmaceutical Industry

The Boehringer Ingelheim team—Yongda Zhang, Eugene Chong, Jada White, Suttipol Radomkit, Yibo Xu, Jon Lorenz, and Linglin Wu—was selected for their innovative work developing a short and eco-friendly manufacturing process for Spiroketone CD 7659—a common intermediate used in multiple projects within the company. The team’s new 3-step asymmetric synthesis route improved the yield nearly five-fold from 10 to 47 percent, reduced organic solvent usage by 99 percent, eliminated use of halogenated solvent, and reduced water usage by 76 percent. The sustainability achievements were further highlighted by a PMI of 117, 72 percent Relative Process Greenness (RPG) score, and an “excellent” innovation Green Aspiration Level (iGAL), placing it in the top 10 percent of industry processes. The team highlighted that their process can be scaled to meet and exceed a projected demand of more than 13 tons of the product which will result in saving more than 69,327,473 kg of waste compared to the initial process for one project.

Figure: This iGAL 2.0 scorecard shows the sustainability improvements of Boehringer Ingelheim’s new process for manufacturing Spiroketone CD 7659 over the incumbent process.

Image shows an iGAL 2.0 scorecard.

More about the Award

The Peter J. Dunn Award, established in 2016, recognizes outstanding industrial implementation of novel green chemistry and/or engineering in the pharmaceutical industry that demonstrates compelling environmental, safety, cost, and/or efficiency improvements over current technologies.

This annual award is presented at the Green Chemistry & Engineering Confernece where presenters are invited to share their innovations. 

Pictured: Yongda Zhang, Distinguished Research Fellow at Boehringer Ingelheim, accepts 2024 Pete Dunn Award from Isamir Martinez (ACSGCI) and ACS GCIPR 2024 Co-Chair, Dan Bailey of Takeda.

Yongda Zhang receives Peter J. Dunn Award on behalf of Boehringer Ingelheim.

Continue reading

Development of a More Sustainable 2nd Generation Route to Peptide-Maleimidocaproyl MonoMethyl Auristatin F (mcMMAF)-the Cytotoxic Payload for Blenrep®, A Novel Antibody Conjugate Drug (ACD) for the Treatment of Multiple Myeloma

2024 Peter J. Dunn Award for Green Chemistry & Engineering Impact in the Pharmaceutical Industry

GSK’s winning submission demonstrated a more sustainable peptide manufacturing route for maleimidocaproyl monomethyl auristatin F (mcMMAF)—a drug used to treat multiple myeloma, a rare cancer affecting plasma cells. GSK team members being recognized are Danny Mancheno, Ian Andrews, Qiaogong Su, Kenneth Arrington, Mark Mellinger, Gregory Gilmartin, Aleksey Karulin, Anthony Nocket, John Kowalski, John Woodard (Collegeville, Pa.), and Chris Thickitt (Stevenage, UK). The first-generation route had already been commercialized and filed with the FDA however, GSK determined a more efficient route was needed. The team took on this complex challenge and developed a 2nd generation route that reduced solvent consumption by 16,160 kgs for every kilogram, greenhouse gas emissions by 71 percent, and energy consumption by 76 percent. Additionally, the route eliminated all single-use silica gel chromatographic separations, achieving an overall 76 percent reduction in Process Mass Intensity (PMI).

First Generation Process to McMMAF

More about the Award

The Peter J. Dunn Award, established in 2016, recognizes outstanding industrial implementation of novel green chemistry and/or engineering in the pharmaceutical industry that demonstrates compelling environmental, safety, cost, and/or efficiency improvements over current technologies.

This annual award is presented at the Green Chemistry & Engineering Confernece where presenters are invited to share their innovations. 

Pictured: Danny E. Mancheno, Principal Investigator at GSK, accepts 2024 Pete Dunn Award from Isamir Martinez (ACSGCI) and ACS GCIPR 2024 Co-Chair, Dan Bailey of Takeda.

2024 Pete Dunn Award Winner - GSK

Continue reading

Sustainable Manufacturing of BMS-986278 Leveraging an ERED/KRED Biocatalytic Cascade

2023 Peter J. Dunn Award for Green Chemistry & Engineering Impact in the Pharmaceutical Industry

Bristol-Myers Squibb was awarded for the “Sustainable Manufacturing of BMS-986278 Leveraging an ERED/KRED Biocatalytic Cascade.” The BMS team’s work demonstrated the use of an ERED/KRED biocatalytic cascade to enable the efficient installation of two stereocenters on a cyclohexyl ring as well as other improvements leading to a reduced number of isolations, elimination of the use of halogenated solvents, reduction of overall Process Mass Intensity (PMI) by 86% from first to second generation, and reduction of projected raw material costs by 82%. BMS team members included Michael Smith, Yichen Tan, Candice Joe, David George, Michael Dummeldinger, Harshkumar Patel, Richard Fox, Shane McKenna, and two Codexis colleagues,  Zara Seibel, and Stephan Jenne.

BMS sustainability metrics comparing the first and second generation routes.

More about the Award

The Peter J. Dunn Award, established in 2016, recognizes outstanding industrial implementation of novel green chemistry and/or engineering in the pharmaceutical industry that demonstrates compelling environmental, safety, cost, and/or efficiency improvements over current technologies.

This annual award is presented at the Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference where a member of the winning team is invited to share their team’s innovations. 

Pictured: Richard Fox, Scientific Director at BMS, accepts the 2023 Pete Dunn Award from ACS GCIPR 2023 Co-Chairs, Dan Bailey of Takeda (right) and Pippa Payne of Gilead (left). Also pictured is Zara Seibel, Senior Scientist at Codexis, part of the winning team.

BMS receives 2023 Pete Dunn Award

Continue reading

Innovative Continuous Process for the Production of 3-Oxocyclobutane-1-Carboxylic Acid

2023 CMO Excellence in Green Chemistry Award

PharmaBlock Sciences from Nanjing, China, received the 2023 CMO Award for their “Innovative Continuous Process for the Production of 3-Oxocyclobutane-1-Carboxylic Acid,” an intermediate used in several marketed drugs and drug candidates. The team developed a novel continuous process to replace the conventional batch production that included an acidic decarboxylation step (Scheme 1 & 2). PharmaBlock reports that the new method is 20 times more efficient: In 10 days, using this new process, PharmaBlock produced over 2 MT with a comparative savings of 68,000 kW energy and the elimination of 8 tons of hazardous waste. In addition, PharmaBlock reduced the exposure of their chemists to potential hazards by developing a remote monitoring system to control the reaction parameters. 

PharmaBlock is continuing to work on its innovative process, which is continuous through the decarboxylation, decolorization, extraction, separation, and concentration phase, to include the final steps of crystallization and filtration. Team members on this project included Feng Zhang, Guangchao Ma, Pengpeng Chen, Bing Zhou, Wei Li, Fuxuan Wang, Hao Tian, Li Zhang, and Yuanxian Wang.

Scheme 1: Batch Mode Decarboxylation Reaction

Scheme 1. Original Process

Scheme 2: Continuous Decarboxylation Reaction diagram

Scheme 2. New Process

PharmaBlock is continuing to work on its innovative process, which is continuous through the decarboxylation, decolorization, extraction, separation, and concentration phase, to include the final steps of crystallization and filtration. Team members on this project included Feng Zhang, Guangchao Ma, Pengpeng Chen, Bing Zhou, Wei Li, Fuxuan Wang, Hao Tian, Li Zhang, and Yuanxian Wang.

More about the Award

The CMO Excellence in Green Chemistry Award seeks to recognize outstanding efforts by CMO companies in pharmaceutical green chemistry in support of pharmaceutical research, development, and manufacturing that demonstrate compelling environmental, safety, and/or efficiency improvements. The award recognizes greener advances in synthetic route development for starting materials, intermediates, or active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), including reaction conditions and chemical or manufacturing technologies.

This annual award is presented at the Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference, where a member of the winning team is invited to share their team’s innovations. 

Pictured: Zhenzhen Dong, Senior Director, US Head of Business Development & Marketing for Pharmablock accepts the 2023 CMO Award with Roundtable co-chairs, Phillipa Payne (Gilead) and Dan Bailey (Takeda).

PharmaBlock 2023 CMO Award

Continue reading

From wood pulp to a candidate medicine: Green manufacturing technologies enable the production of investigational leukemia drug nemtabrutinib from a biorenewable commodity material

2022 Peter J. Dunn Award for Green Chemistry & Engineering Impact in the Pharmaceutical Industry

A team from Merck in Rahway, NJ is the recipient of the 2022 Peter J. Dunn Award for Green Chemistry and Engineering Impact in the Pharmaceutical Industry. Merck team members receiving the award are Karla Camacho Soto, Mike DiMaso, Jacob Forstater, Nadine Kuhl, Reed Larson, Chris Prier, and Ben Turnbull. 

The initial manufacturing process for nemtabrutinib—acquired through the purchase of ArQule, Inc.—relied on an 11-step synthesis. The Merck team was able to reduce this to two steps. They were also able to replace toxic solvents with biorenewable Cyrene, avoid a highly energy-intensive transformation, and employ catalysis to improve efficiency. Three new technologies were employed to contribute to the sustainability of the process: biocatalysis, enzyme immobilization, and continuous manufacturing in a packed-bed reactor. Merck estimates that the new process reduces energy utilization 70%, as well as seeing a 70% reduction in both carbon dioxide and wastewater generation.

“The development and deployment of enabling technologies that support the most robust long-term supply of our medicines and vaccines is a primary goal of our process research and development team, and we are confident that biocatalysis will continue to grow as a key driver of efficient manufacturing processes,” says L.-C. Campeau, Associate Vice President and the Head of Small Molecule Process Research & Development at Merck.

MK-1026 chemical manufacturing process

Figure 1. New MK-1026 chemical manufacturing process.

More about the Award

The Peter J. Dunn Award, established in 2016, recognizes outstanding industrial implementation of novel green chemistry and/or engineering in the pharmaceutical industry that demonstrates compelling environmental, safety, cost, and/or efficiency improvements over current technologies.

This annual award is presented at the Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference, where representatives of the winning team are invited to share their team’s innovations. 

Pictured: Chris Prier and Reed Larson, Associate Principal Scientists at Merck, accept the 2022 Pete Dunn Award from David Constable and Isamir Martinez (ACSGCI) and ACS GCIPR 2022 Co-Chair, Pippa Payne of Gilead.

Merck receives 2022 Peter Dunn Award

Continue reading