Packaging

Custom manufacturing with innovation and experience

Tuesday 01. February 2011 - Saltigo at InformexUSA 2011 in Charlotte/NC, United States, from February 7 to 10, 2011, Stand 1239

All-round service for the pharmaceutical and chemical industries
Saltigo GmbH, a global company specializing in exclusive synthesis, will be taking part in InformexUSA in Charlotte, North Carolina, from February 7 to 10, 2011. The LANXESS subsidiary will use this opportunity to showcase its extensive portfolio of services for customers in the pharmaceutical, agricultural and specialty chemistry industries.
Wolfgang Schmitz, Managing Director of Saltigo, is cautiously optimistic about the company’s performance: “Our agricultural business suffered in the first half of 2010 as a result of the long winter in the northern hemisphere and our customers’ high stock levels, but the situation improved significantly afterwards. Demand was particularly high for fungicide active ingredients and their precursors. To meet the long-term rising demand from the agricultural industry, we significantly increased our capacities for key products in 2010. We are particularly proud that we managed to do so without having a negative impact on day-to-day operations.” In the pharmaceutical sector, Saltigo succeeded in further expanding its customer base and, despite the difficult economic environment, in winning many new projects in all phases of the product lifecycle. “Overall, we expect the upward trend to continue in 2011, even though it is notoriously difficult to make such predictions for the agricultural industry due to its dependence on the weather,” said Schmitz.
Innovation and experience are the key to success
Saltigo has achieved its success thanks to the company’s ability to intelligently combine innovative, state-of-the-art solutions – in both chemistry and other areas – with the many years of expertise built up by its staff. This expertise takes in everything from the production of fine chemicals in general to the management of demanding processes and reagents in individual cases. “We provide our customers in the pharmaceutical industry with services along the entire value-added chain – from precursors to active ingredients and from process development to registration. We can also deliver whatever quantity they need, tailored to particular development phases or market requirements,” said Dr. Andreas Stolle, head of Saltigo’s Pharma business line. “The last two years have been particularly challenging for our industry, but we will nonetheless continue to expand, make targeted investments, launch new technologies and seek to make continuous improvements in ongoing projects,” he added. Innovation in all sectors remains an important factor for success.
Two years ago, Saltigo set up a CGMP-qualified site in Redmond near Seattle to be able to offer services locally to the pharmaceutical industry on the important U.S. market. This site includes kilogram-scale laboratories and a pilot plant with deep-freeze equipment for the manufacture of active ingredients for pharmaceutical testing up to and including Phase IIa.
Reliable and efficient reactions under pressure
Reactions under pressure – such as hydrogenations and alkylations with gaseous reaction partners, e.g. unsaturated hydrocarbons or ammonia – play a particularly important role in the production of agrochemical intermediates and active ingredients. Saltigo has both the know-how and technical equipment needed to perform these reactions reliably and efficiently on a large scale – at pressures of up to 250 bar and temperatures of up to 320 °C in stainless steel, enamel or Hastelloy (C-4 alloy) reactors with a capacity of up to 12 m3.
The company provides its customers with comprehensive process development services, sophisticated analytics, logistics and on-site warehousing capacities of up to 1,000 metric tons. It also offers professional support for precision product cleaning, catalyst recycling and solvent treatment.
Highest standards for optimal delivery reliability
Saltigo played a key role in the process of drawing up the ‘Voluntary Guidelines for Manufacturers of ISO-regulated Fine Chemical Intermediates and Active Ingredients’ published by AIME (Agrochemicals and Intermediates Manufacturers in Europe) as part of the EFCG (European Fine Chemicals Group). “We signed up to these guidelines to ensure compliance with the highest standards in terms of quality, reliability, occupational health and safety and environmental protection. This also means optimal delivery reliability for our customers,” said Dr. Uwe Brunk, head of the Agro & Fine Chemicals business line at Saltigo.
At Informex on February 7, Dirk Sandri, head of Marketing & Sales in this business line, will give a presentation explaining the details of this voluntary agreement and describing its objectives and effects. Outside Europe, too, the idea of drawing up guidelines like these is becoming increasingly popular with providers and customers alike.
Core competence: Transition metal catalysis
In recent years, Saltigo has started to specialize in catalyzed coupling reactions and now receives dozens of customer inquiries each year – with the trend on the up. “Buchwald-Hartwig aminations play an important role here, but before they meet our expectations in terms of selectivity and yield on an industrial scale, too, they often require optimization,” said Stolle. Many catalyst systems applied – or the ligands used in them – require special handling because of their sensitivity to oxygen. On an industrial scale, that is not exactly a minor point.
Saltigo devotes special attention to the industrial manufacture of special phosphine ligands. The Redmond site in the United States has recently succeeded in scaling up the synthesis process for the latest generation of Buchwald-Hartwig ligands. This means, for example, that biphenyl monophosphines such as tert-butyl-XPhos, tetramethyl-t-butyl-XPhos and BrettPhos can now be produced in the quantities needed for custom synthesis.
“It is usually relatively easy to scale up these kinds of amination reactions once the reaction has reached industrial scale,” explained Dr. Björn Schlummer, chemicals process manager in Saltigo’s Pharma business line. This characteristic is particularly attractive when, in the course of a synthesis project, the required volume continuously rises. This is normally the case in the development, clinical testing and marketing of active pharmaceutical ingredients. In this way, even highly substituted anilines and aryl halides can be coupled efficiently, as demonstrated by the example of a diarylamine that has recently been produced in 630-liter volume in compliance with CGMP guidelines and with a good yield. In most cases, there is nothing standing in the way of a further scale-up.
State-of-the-art and conventional synthesis chemistry go hand in hand with engineering expertise at Saltigo. “Ultimately, we provide customers with the best solution – one that is efficient, safe, reliable and economical,” said Wolfgang Schmitz.