ABSTRACT
Although the pressure to produce more compounds was visibly coming from pharmaceutical companies, most of the new techniques were developed at academic institutions. Big companies still did not embrace the new techniques possibly due to the fact that they are quite simple and inexpensive to implement. Pharmaceutical companies do not want simple solutions; they would rather invest in enormous automation projects. In the end the managers are judged by the budget they were able to invest, and a big room full of robotic synthesizers definitely looks impressive. Another major factor is the “visibility” of the compound produced. Production of 100 nmoles of the compound (about 50µg of an average organic compound), which can make 100 ml of 1 µM solution (enough for 1000 biological assays), is unacceptable-simply because it is not “visible.” Companies usually require 5-50 mg of the compound (more than enough for 1 million assays) just to “have it on the shelf.” And techniques providing 100 nmoles are definitely cheaper and require less automation than techniques needed to make milligram quantities of the compound.
