Chiral Hydrogenation

We have been involved in asymmetric synthesis and chiral hydrogenation since the late 1980's. Our work has focused specifically on the hydrogenation of prochiral substrates using homogeneous and heterogeneous catalyst systems. In particular, we have reduced dehydro-amino acids to give a range of unnatural amino acids via the azalactone synthesis, as shown in the scheme below. This process has been successfully scaled-up to allow the commercial manufacture of 100's kilos and low tonne volumes of chiral amino-acids and related products. Furthermore, we have used enzymatic resolution techniques to achieve high enantiometric excess in the final products.