New Organic Catalyst Should Improve Drug Development, Lower Costs

This catalyst, named “Hua Cat” after one of the researchers who helped create it, should soon be commercially available for use in the field of “chiral” chemistry – the basis for about 90 percent of all new drug development, and applicable to medications used in everything from heart disease to cancer. This is already a $500 million industry with rapid growth, and has been projected to surpass $5 billion within five years.

Discussions are already under way with an Oregon company for commercial production of the compound, and a major pharmaceutical brand has already expressed interest. The findings were just published in Organic Letters, a professional journal, based on work that was originally supported by the National Institutes of Health. Current support for this work has been obtained through the Oregon Venture Fund, a new commercialization program that chose Hua Cat as one of its first funding recipients.

“We invented this almost out of necessity, because we were working on a natural product called lycopodine in which no existing catalyst was effective and we needed something new,” said Rich Carter, an associate professor of chemistry at OSU. “It was only after we developed it that we realized the potential it had for the whole field of drug development. The advance should be of considerable value to the pharmaceutical industry, it’s really pretty exciting.”

Catalysts are chemical compounds that help facilitate other chemical reactions without themselves being consumed – in industrial production, they can be used over and over. Most medicinal drugs are based on what are called chiral molecules, which are like two mirror images that fit together, similar to a lock and key, or a right hand shaking another person’s right hand. To create such drugs, molecules are often induced to become chiral through the use of a catalyst.

Existing approaches to create these chiral compounds often use toxic metals, which are extremely expensive and sometimes difficult to dispose of as waste. By contrast, an "organocatalyst" such as the one just discovered at OSU is more environmentally friendly and works better with most pharmaceutical drugs, which are also organic molecules. In this case, the catalyst is also far more effective, more stable and less costly to produce. Much of this work was done by Hua Yang, an OSU postdoctoral research associate.

Advances in chiral chemistry have been recognized as extremely important, and were the basis for the 2001 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

“The Hua Cat compound should be significantly cheaper than existing compounds in widespread use for drug development,” Carter said. “It’s derived from what essentially are amino acids, soaps and cleaning solvents, which are very inexpensive. And it works better, providing solubility that’s more than 10 times higher than related compounds now being used.”

“The improved solubility and unique chemical reactivity should revolutionize this field,” he continued. “We’re grateful to the OSU Venture Fund and its private donor support in getting the innovation this far.”

Further research is needed to develop methods for large scale production of the compound, researchers said.

Provided by Oregon State University

Experimental agent blocks prostate cancer in animal study
An experimental drug has blocked the progression of prostate cancer in an animal model with an aggressive form of the disease, new research shows. The agent, OSU-HDAC42, belongs to a new class of drugs called histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors, compounds designed to reactivate genes that normally protect against cancer but are turned off by the cancer process.
Best treatment identified to reduce deadly Staph infections
One type of over-the-counter product for topical wound care is more effective than others in killing methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, or MRSA, which is potentially deadly and in recent years has moved from its historic hospital setting to a much broader public concern.
Scientists are high on idea that marijuana reduces memory impairment
The more research they do, the more evidence Ohio State University scientists find that specific elements of marijuana can be good for the aging brain by reducing inflammation there and possibly even stimulating the formation of new brain cells.
New platinum-phosphate compounds kill ovarian cancer cells
A new class of compounds called phosphaplatins can effectively kill ovarian, testicular, head and neck cancer cells with potentially less toxicity than conventional drugs, according to a new study published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Scientists exploring new compounds to target muscular dystrophy
Scientists have identified a promising set of new compounds in the fight against muscular dystrophy. Using a drug-discovery technique in which molecules compete against each other for access to the target – the strand of toxic RNA that causes the most common form of muscular dystrophy in adults – a team at the University of Rochester Medical Center has identified several compounds that, in the laboratory, block the unwanted coupling of two molecules that is at the root of the disease.
Two new compounds show promise for eliminating breast cancer tumors
Two new compounds created by a University of Central Florida professor show early promise for destroying breast cancer tumors.
Alzheimer's disease breakthrough
CSIRO scientists have developed a new system to screen for compounds that can inhibit one of the processes that takes place during the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
Novel 4-drug combination proves safe for lung cancer treatment
The four drug-combination of carboplatin and paclitaxel, with the targeted therapies bevacizumab (Avastin) and cetuximab (Erbitux), is safe and may improve survival for patients with advanced lung cancer, according to a cooperative group study led by The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

New Organic Catalyst Should Improve Drug Development, Lower Costs

Related stories:

News discussion: