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Fluorous Technologies, Inc.
FTI is a life science-focused chemical technology company that sells products and services which enable pharmaceutical and biotech companies to develop new drugs more quickly, more efficiently, and in a process that is more "green" (friendly to the environment).

FTI Awarded $1 million SBIR Grant
FTI has been awarded a $1 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant by the U.S. National Institutes of Health entitled "Solution Phase Libraries by Fluorous Mixture Synthesis." Fluorous mixture synthesis (FMS), first reported by Curran and coworkers in Science (2001, 291, 1766), is a powerful new technique that enables chemists to create libraries of small molecules in solution phase at a rate up to seven times faster than via traditional parallel synthesis. By taking advantage of fluorous tags and fluorous HPLC columns (both available from FTI), single compounds can be generated with purities in excess of 90%.

"As part of our emerging service business, we are currently leveraging this technology to offer both targeted libraries for lead optimization as well as larger, more diverse libraries for our customer's lead generation needs. With the grant, we plan to further accelerate this technology and to explore new regions of solution phase chemistry," said Dr. Philip Yeske, Chief Operating Officer of FTI. Dr. Wei Zhang, Leader of Combinatorial Chemistry efforts at FTI said, "I am excited about the great advantages FMS provides for high throughput synthesis of medicinally relevant molecules. Our work to date has shown that fluorous tags are completely soluble in typical organic solvents, unlike the polymer-bound reagents used in solid phase synthesis. The SBIR funding will speed our progress in FMS, including the development of new fluorous reagents, tags, and scavengers."

FluoroFlash™ System Yields Real Benefits
Five of the top ten global pharmaceutical and several major biotechnology companies are using FTI's patented FluoroFlash™ synthesis and separation system. FluoroFlash™ enables scientists to synthesize small molecules in solution phase and to purify reactions significantly faster, often utilizing fluorous solid phase extraction (SPE) rather than HPLC. Click here to see FluoroFlash™ SPE in action! FTI offers over 50 FluoroFlash™ reagent and sorbent products that can be packaged in SPE, HPLC, or Flash Columns. Click here to see the complete FTI product offering!

Genentech Applies FTI Technology
The challenge that chemists face in small molecule synthesis and separation is well documented. Dr. Edward HyungSuk Ha, a scientist in the Parallel Synthesis Group, Bioorganic Chemistry at Genentech in South San Francisco, is no different. He needs tools to help him perform his job more effectively, and fluorous chemistry provides one such option. "The integrated fluorous chemistry system has given me a new parallel tool. The tagging reactions are straight-forward and robust. Subsequent exploitation of the predictable fluorous chromatography affords highly pure focused libraries in hours instead of a week full of boring and scary "HPLC fishing trips"."

Of course, a large portion of the cost associated with small molecule development is time and therefore workplace productivity is key. On this topic Dr. Ha went on to say, "Since fluorous methods are solution phase based, the technology development time turn-around is short. I have noticed a five-fold increase in molecule production using the same amount of consumables." Technology platforms need to be robust to be broadly applicable and Dr. Ha has found fluorous chemistry to be exactly that. "I have been consistently amazed at the general chemical stability of the FluoroFlash™ bonded phase. I load reactions onto the FluoroFlash™ SPE or HPLC columns with only a basic filtration through a 0.45 micron filter in a variety of solvents. Amazing!" To see more customer testimonials please click here.

Don't Miss the May13th Edition of Tetrahedron
The May 13th edition of Tetrahedron will highlight many recent advances in fluorous chemistry. FTI's technology of using simple fluorous thiols as nucleophilic scavengers in parallel synthesis is featured in one full paper in this issue. A simple solid phase extraction over FluoroFlash™ silica gel removes both the scavenged products and the excess scavenger. Compared to related solid phase scavenging reactions, the fluorous reactions are faster, cleaner, and do not require large excesses of scavenging reagents. In another paper in this issue, Curran and Dandapani introduce fluorous Mitsunobu reagents and reactions. Alcohols are substituted with acidic nucleophiles, and the spent fluorous DEAD and phosphine reagents are removed by SPE in a fast and simple protocol that is ideal for high-throughput applications. All the reagents as well as the FluoroFlash™ silica needed for these transformations and related reactions are available now from FTI.

FTI Employee Highlight - Dr. Wei Zhang
Dr. Zhang is a Senior Scientist and Leader of the Combinatorial Chemistry efforts at Fluorous Technologies, Inc. Wei received his Ph.D in Chemistry from Professor Paul Dowd at the University of Pittsburgh. After spending 2 years at the same university as a Research Assistant Professor, Wei worked for DuPont for 5 years. He has extensive experience in lead discovery, synthetic free radical chemistry, and fluorous combinatorial chemistry. Wei has authored and co-authored more than 35 publications. Have a challenging synthesis or separation problem? Click here to put Wei to work on the case!

Seeking Scientists
Ready to work in an exciting and challenging new area of chemistry for an emerging leader in the chemical technology industry? If so, FTI is currently seeking Bachelor, Master's and PhD. scientists with experience in synthetic organic chemistry, medicinal chemistry, library generation, process R&D, or process chemistry. Click here to submit your resume today!

Next Issue - Fluorous Process Chemistry
Our next issues will highlight advances in fluorous process chemistry.

For further information please contact Dr. Philip E. Yeske at 412-826-3051. We value your privacy. To learn more about how FTI uses personal information, click here. To unsubscribe from this newsletter, please reply to this email with “unsubscribe” in the subject line.