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Specialty Chemistry Platforms
The molecule classes where the synthesis itself decides whether the program is viable.
When the chemistry is the decision
Sometimes one step decides whether a program is viable: the fluorination that will not go selectively, the ring that will not close, the lipid that will not purify. When that is the case, the size of a partner’s chemistry team matters less than whether that team has made this class of molecule before, often enough to know which approach works and which wastes months.
That experience is why we run standing teams, each built around a single class of chemistry — several of them for more than a decade.
Fluorine chemistry
For more than 10 years, we’ve honed the capability most CRDMOs do not have: fluorination using SF4 and fluorine gas, at normal and high pressure with HF or SF4, from milligram research through to kilogram production. A large standing collection of fluorination reagents means condition screening starts immediately rather than after a procurement cycle. Work covers condition screening and optimization, late-stage functionalization, scalable procedures and the synthesis of fluorine-containing building blocks.
Organoboron chemistry
Boronic acids, amino boronic acids, tertiary boronic esters, cyclic boronic esters and MIDA boronates, at high chemical and optical purity with short cycle times. C–H borylation scales with better than 98% success, across substrate scopes from milligrams to hundreds of grams.
Carbohydrate chemistry
Custom synthesis of complex oligosaccharides, glycolipids, glycopeptides and glycoconjugates — chemistry in which protecting-group strategy decides the outcome, and experience is the only real shortcut.
Lipid chemistry
More than 2,000 compounds a year at better than 95% purity: ionizable lipids, neutral lipids, hybrid sterols, phospholipids, branched lipids and thio-derivatives. More than 1,000 head and tail fragments are held ready, so a structure-activity series around a lipid can be assembled rather than synthesized from scratch. Polymer synthesis runs alongside it.
Macrocyclic chemistry
Our experience is built on more than 18 years and over 2,000 macrocycles, using more than 10 cyclization methods — Mitsunobu, ring-closing metathesis, sulfonamide formation, lactamization and others. We have delivered more than 50 grams of a target through a synthesis of 20 to 31 steps, which is the honest measure of whether a macrocycle program can actually be supplied rather than only demonstrated.
Steroid chemistry
More than 15 years of experience, over 100 dedicated chemists and more than 10,000 steroid compounds, with support across every stage.
Stable isotope labeling
Deuterium, carbon-13 and nitrogen-15 labeling, including knowledge of where to put the label — position selection is part of the design service, not an instruction we wait for. We have completed more than 100 projects, delivered over 2,000 compounds, and hold more than 200 labeled starting materials and intermediates in stock, so a labeled standard does not start with a six-week procurement timeline.
Fluorescent bio-probes and labeling
More than 10 years of probe chemistry experience, over 30 types of bio-labeling and more than 500 molecules delivered, covering linkers, warheads, bioconjugates and labeling systems for in vitro and in vivo work.
Chemistry that is difficult on purpose
Fluorine, organoboron, macrocycles, stable isotopes. These are platforms because the chemistry does not generalize — each takes years of accumulated failure to run reliably, which is why most suppliers offer two or three and decline the rest.
Eight in one place means a molecule needing two of them at once is a synthesis question, not a sourcing exercise across three continents.