Peakdale Molecular Expands its Capacity and Capabilities

Peakdale Molecular Ltd has undertaken significant investment to increase capacity and enhance its capabilities to further support customers’ drug discovery challenges. The addition of new facilities and equipment has increased Peakdale’s range for large-scale processes and ability to perform more challenging synthesis techniques including low-temperature and microwave chemistry.

The adoption of these technologies has enabled Peakdale’s chemists to perform a wider range of syntheses that introduce novelty and diversity such as lithiation and kinetically controlled asymmetric processes, high temperature hydrolysis, fluorinations by halogen exchange and palladium mediated couplings.

In addition to the greater range of processes Peakdale can undertake, the new equipment and facilities will also shorten development times. Two microwave reactors are now operational. The first of these is a monomode system giving the capability for rapid automated reaction screening and/or library synthesis at small scale (<20ml). Validated synthetic routes can then be transferred to the second system, a multimode reactor which can produce up to 100g in a single run. This facility has already been used successfully for the large scale elaboration of customers’ microwave protocols.

The new scale up laboratory has been designed to complement as well as expand Peakdale’s existing kilo lab facility. As well as increased capacity, the new equipment will speed up the development time for scaling up processes. A new heater chiller now enables Peakdale to perform processes at -80°C on a 30 litre scale allowing for multi-kilogram scale up of complex intermediates.

“Our investment in these new facilities supports the development of our medicinal chemistry services and also gives us the ability to work with our growing customer base at more stages of their research”, commented Kim Morrison, CEO of Peakdale Molecular. “We have always prided ourselves on offering a flexible and innovative response to our clients to ensure delivery within their timescales.”