Status check: biocatalysis; its use with and without chemocatalysis. How does the fine chemicals industry view this area?

Abstract

Biocatalytic processes used alone, as well as part of chemoenzymatic catalysis, would appear to be very attractive areas to several types of companies that make up the fine chemicals industry. These offer, in particular, many opportunities for advances based on enzymatic processes that tend to be highly selective, if not specific, in their applications carried out in environmentally respectful aqueous media. The same is true for chemocatalysis, where many of the most important processes can today be merged with biocatalysis and used together in a single pot, all in water. But notwithstanding these virtues, industrial usage, in fact, is highly variable, at least as of today. This Perspective Article provides the raw, unfiltered yet confidential responses to a series of questions from those at several companies in the fine chemicals industry regarding these topics.