Case Study 1
To synthesize 1-Deoxy-D-Xylulose-5-phosphate and scale-up of the same to 5g scale. The five carbon sugar is a substrate for an enzyme called 1-Deoxy-D-Xylulose-5-phosphate reductoisomerase (DXR). This enzyme is present in bacteria, protozoa and some alges. The advantage of this target is that there is no orthologous gene in host human. This is supposed to reduce the selectivity optimization burden. The substrate was required for screening four hundred and ten thousand compound library in a high throughput manner, justifying the requirement of five grams. This substrate could have been bought commercially but cost was the prohibiting factor, It is sold in the range of six hundred to eleven hundred US$ for ten milligrams. Best negotiations brought it down only at two hundred and fifty thousand US$ for five grams in three months.
This substance was delivered in sixty days with two full time equivalents in required quantity, purity and biological activity in fifteen lakh INR. The scheme used was as follows.