Continuous flow reactors for drug discovery.

To develop a new generation of drugs, pharmaceutical companies need to be able to synthesize and screen novel chemicals with enhanced speed. New technology that would enable a cost-neutral increase in the number of potential drug candidates would provide a distinct competitive advantage. The miniaturisation of chemical reactors offers many fundamental and practical advantages of relevance to the pharmaceutical industry, which is constantly searching for controllable, information-rich, high-throughput and environmentally friendly methods of producing compounds with a high degree of chemical selectivity. This article reviews the current and future applications of micro reactors that could enhance the drug discovery process.