Chemo-enzymatic synthesis of pharmaceutical intermediates.

Chirality is a key factor in the safety and efficacy of many drug products and, thus, the production of single enantiomers of drug intermediates has become increasingly important in the pharmaceutical industry. There has been an increasing awareness of the enormous potential of microorganisms and enzymes derived therefrom for the transformation of synthetic chemicals with high chemo-, regio- and enantioselectivities. In this article, some selected enzymatic processes are described for the synthesis of chiral intermediates for pharmaceuticals.