CHIRAL DRUG INTERACTIONS

As worldwide annual sales of enantiomeric drugs get set to break through the $100 billion mark in 2000, the issue of chirality in drugs increasingly is interacting with other issues facing the drug industry and its suppliers. These issues include drug delivery systems, defenses against generic competition by drug innovators, Food & Drug Administration approval requirements, education of physicians, supply agreements, and production in India and China. Firms that have stakes in chirality in drugs—such as ChiroTech Technology, Chirex, Sepracor, and Oxford Asymmetry—must increasingly factor these issues into their business plans. Such companies continue to be active in developing new enantioselective technology for chiral drug and intermediate production. They also scour universities to license patents granted to faculty. And firms involved with chirality and other fields of drug discovery and development form partnerships in various combinations. The scorekeeper of the marketing progress of chiral drugs is ...