Use in the Pharmaceutical Industry

Within the pharmaceutical industry, precious metal based catalysts are predominantly used in cross‑coupling reactions, with 17% of the transformations catalysed by palladium [1] (please see the introduction to C-H activation), other palladium catalysed transformations include hydrogenation/hydrogenolysis and Bn/CBz deprotection.

Given the prevalence of the use of precious metals in the synthesis of important molecules, finding alternative methods is not clear cut as there are associated issues with the required selectivity and the use of a different method would require complete or partial redesign of large scale processes. Moreover, small changes in a production process for pharmaceutically relevant molecules would require reopening of the associated registration files, which would incur further costs. In addition to the issue of the scarcity and cost of precious metals, the ligands associated with them in a given method can be more expensive per mole than the metal itself, and there are no means for their recovery. [2]