During the process of drug manufacturing, hazardous waste is produced and has become a chief concern for many in the pharmaceutical industry. Currently, large quantities of solvents are used, requiring several steps to generate complex drugs. Researcher Katalin Barta, and colleagues, have developed a method to manufacture relevant compounds for pharmaceutical manufacturing in two or three steps, using renewable woodchips. With their only waste product being water, this green method is generating a significant amount of attention in the pharmaceutical and environmental science community. The research is published in the journal ACS Central Science.
Their process utilizes lignin in the woodchips. Several groups have previously developed strategies for depolymerizing lignin, Barta chose to investigate what useful products could be obtained from it. It was at this point in their investigation did they discover that lignin derivatives share many complex structural features to many modern pharmaceuticals. These shared structural components made lignin excellent starting materials to synthesize potential drug candidates. The time and resources this green method could save researchers by skipping the waste-generating steps of traditional methods is very significant.