York’s Key Role in Green Chemistry Research Project  

Scientists in the Department of Chemistry at the University of York are to play a key role in a major new research project which aims to develop sustainable manufacturing routes to pharmaceuticals.

Funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative, CHEM 21 (Chemical Manufacturing Methods for the 21st Century Pharmaceutical Industries) brings together six pharmaceutical companies, three SMEs and research groups from York and nine other universities. The partners have a common goal of developing novel catalytic technologies for chemical synthesis.

The project will focus on the catalysis of base and precious metals, biocatalysis and synthetic biology and will provide a research hub for European efforts in this area. CHEM21 will also act as a source of the latest information on green chemistry metrics and will develop training packages to embed the principles of sustainable manufacture in the education of future scientists.

The project will run initially for four years with around €1.5M of the €26.4M total budget allocated to York with the university’s scientists involved in all but one of the six project work packages, including a focus on medicinal and process chemistry education.

Professor Richard Taylor, Head of Chemistry at the University of York, said: “This is a unique pan-European opportunity for pharmaceutical companies and specialist SMEs to carry out collaborative research projects with world-class academic groups to develop novel catalytic processes to revolutionise and "green" pharmaceutical synthesis.

CHEM21 is being jointly administered by GSK and the University of Manchester