Native Proteins in Organic Chemistry. Recent Achievements in the use of non Hydrolytic Enzymes for the Synthesis of Pharmaceuticals

Industrial chemical companies have taken advantage of enzymes for the production of pharmaceuticals by means of nonselective and selective transformations. This review covers recently published chemoenzymatic synthesis of important drugs, focusing on the production of the desired targets with high to excellent yields. Remarkably, biocatalysts have allowed the development of asymmetric processes through different strategies, providing efficient access to challenging substrates that are difficult to obtain by traditional chemical methods. Thus, the action of different classes of non hydrolytic enzymes has been covered, including a wide number of oxidoreductases, lyases and transferases. The importance of using enzymes with synthetic purposes under mild reaction conditions is fully demonstrated in the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients and other organic compounds with interesting biological profiles.