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Degussa AG is a leading supplier of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts, including biocatalysts, for the pharmaceutical and fine chemicals industry. Catalysts contribute a lot to the competitiveness of processes and allow access to molecules which would have needed to be made in a less efficient way without using catalysts.

CATALYST SUPPORT SERVICES

Beyond the catalyst itself, Degussa offers a broad range of services and enabling technologies to employ catalysts at their best. This puts Degussa into a unique position as the only catalyst supplier today with all three catalyst technologies in its portfolio.

Degussa's business model is based on the notion of solutions-to-customers. It is our objective to jointly develop and scale up tailor-made catalysts, which will make production processes more reliable, more efficient and more predictable.

DEGUSSA HOMOGENEOUS CATALYSTS (DHC)

DHC offers a complete set of solutions to significantly improve technical access to Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) or intermediates for processes in the life sciences market:

• Ligands and metal complex catalysts (homogeneous catalysts)
• Screening services for ligands and homogeneous catalysts
• Custom and contract synthesis services in the field of phosphorus and organometallic chemistry

Key to our success is our straightforward business model which makes it easy to use homogeneous catalysts commercially. For instance, our catalysts and screening prices include all IP costs (kg-prices with IP included).

Our unique and proprietary portfolio of catALLium® ligands and catalysts are designed for a full range of applications, including asymmetric hydrogenation (catASium® family), palladium-catalysed C–X coupling reactions (cataCXium® family) and metathesis (catMETium® family). All catALLium® ligands and catalysts are available from lab sample to commercial quantities.

CATALYST SCREENING SERVICE

Our state-of-the-art catalyst screening services include:

• Extensive ligand library from various sources
• Multiple screening techniques to identify the best catalyst and to begin optimisation
• Suitable autoclaves to characterise the reaction and necessary kinetics for up-scaling

HETEROGENEOUS CATALYSTS

For decades, Business Line Catalysts has been an established partner for the pharmaceutical industry. Our range of specialist catalysts includes

• Precious metal powder catalysts
• Activated base metal catalysts
• Deloxan® metal scavengers

Precious metal powder catalysts like Pd/C and activated base metal catalysts (i.e. metal sponge catalysts) are the workhorses when it comes to achiral hydrogenations of functional groups in the syntheses of pharmaceutical compounds.

Like in homogeneous catalysis, these specialist catalysts can be tailor-made and adjusted to the customer needs. This is where Degussa can leverage its more than 40 years of experience and expertise in heterogeneous catalysts. Deloxan® metal scavengers are macroporous organofunctional polysiloxane beads with properties that make them ideal for removing transition metals from APIs or intermediates.

PARALLEL SCREENING, METALS MANAGEMENT AND REFINING MANAGEMENT

Our specialist catalyst services also include:

• Rapid parallel screening of heterogeneous catalysts and catalyst profiling
• Metals management
• Management of refining spent catalysts

SERVICE CENTER BIOCATALYSIS

Degussa's Service Center Biocatalysis is uniquely positioned as a full-service provider in industrial biocatalysis. Our range includes all relevant steps to identify, optimize and finally supply our customers at any scale with the one biocatalyst most suitable for their process.

Our catalyst screenings are based on:

• Broad collection of proprietary and standard strains
• Large in-house enzyme and clone banks
• Bioinformatics

DIRECTED EVOLUTION FOR ENZYME OPTIMIZATION

For enzyme optimisation we typically apply 'directed evolution' as a highly efficient technology. To finally end up with robust and industrially applicable production processes, our service also includes the development, scale-up and pilot manufacture of customers' products based on our biocatalysts.

Degussa's biocatalytic innovations in life sciences are based on the use of isolated enzymes as well as recombinant whole-cell catalysts ("designer cells"). The commercial relevance of our proprietary biocatalysis portfolio is underlined by numerous large-scale applications thereof at Degussa such as L-methionine, L- tert -leucine and other non-natural and amino acids, chiral and aroma alcohols, cosmetic esters etc.