Biocatalysis for industrial production of fine chemicals.

Chiral intermediates constitute a significant part of the fine chemicals market, which is strongly influenced by trends in the pharmaceutical industries, where approximately 70% of pharmaceuticals are expected to be enantiomerically pure in the next century as compared to 25% today. The main technologies by which enantiomerically pure ingredients are obtained today are (dynamic) resolutions of racemic mixtures. Asymmetric syntheses are being developed, but their applications in industry are still under represented. Biotechnological methods, resolutions as well as asymmetric syntheses, are becoming increasingly important in the industrial production of fine chemicals.