Industrial Chemistry and Water Treatment

Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals

Medicinal chemistry in its most common practice—focusing on small organic molecules—encompasses synthetic organic chemistry and aspects of natural products and computational chemistry in close combination with chemical biology, enzymology and structural biology, together aiming at the discovery and development of new therapeutic agents. This sector includes chemicals used in variety of industries such as selenium dioxide as oxidising agent in preparation of API's selenium sulphide for antidandruff shampoos, sodium selenite anhydrous and pentahydrate in animal feed formulations. Discovery is the identification of novel active chemical compounds, often called "hits", which are typically found by assay of compounds for a desired biological activity. Initial hits can come from repurposing existing agents towards a new pathologic process. Hit to lead and lead optimization. Chemical modifications can improve the recognition and binding geometries (pharmacophores) of the candidate compounds, and so their affinities for their targets, as well as improving the physicochemical properties of the molecule that underlie necessary pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD), and toxicologic profiles (stability toward metabolic degradation, lack of geno- hepatic, and cardiac toxicities, etc.) such that the chemical compound or biologic is suitable for introduction into animal and human studies. The final synthetic chemistry stages involve the production of a lead compound in suitable quantity and quality to allow large scale animal testing, and then human clinical trials. This involves the optimization of the synthetic route for bulk industrial production, and discovery of the most suitable drug formulation. Industrial chemicals are used in researching and developing active drug substances and manufacturing bulk substances and finished pharmaceutical products. Organic and inorganic chemicals are raw materials, serving as reactants, reagents, catalysts and solvents. The use of industrial chemicals is determined by the specific manufacturing process and operations.