DeMeern, The Netherlands and Iselin, NJ -- May 29, 2008 --   BASF Catalysts’ new Blocking Group Removal (BGR) catalysts have been   nominated for the prestigious 2008 CPhI Innovation Award. The more environmentally benign, BGR catalysts deliver high activity and selectivity resulting in bottom-line savings for pharmaceutical and fine chemicals producers.
Fine chemicals manufacturers face increasing pressure to reduce the environmental impact of their processes, while also lowering manufacturing costs. BASF’s BGR catalysts represent a recent innovation in the field of highly active and selective heterogeneous palladium catalysts that help resolve these issues.  Developed through combining innovative carbon supports with enhanced metal deposition technologies, the catalysts are typically used for removing common blocking groups, such as benzyl used in organic synthesis, among other protecting groups.
The BGR catalysts have also proven effective in removing blocking groups in chiral synthesis – without disturbing the chiral center – an important requirement for the pharmaceutical and fine chemicals industries.
“When compared to conventional catalysts, BASF’s BGR catalysts have demonstrated up to 180 percent higher activity,” said Dr. Hans Donkervoort, Global Product Technology Manager, Specialty and Fine Chemicals Catalysts, BASF. “This leads to surprising technical benefits for users.”

For example, classic deprotection catalysts allow the use of only a limited number of solvents, usually alcohols. This results in prolonged reaction times and limits the scope of substrates that are essential for obtaining acceptable deprotection conversions. BASF’s BGR catalysts’ much higher activity allows manufacturers to broaden the number of solvents from which they can choose to achieve improved hydrogenation activity. New choices may include ethyl acetate, n-methyl pyrrolidone (NMP) or tetrahydrofuran (THF).
Using BGR catalysts in place of classic catalysts also significantly shortens process time. That enables manufacturers to achieve higher throughput in their plants or to free up their reactors sooner for other production runs.
“This activity increase, coupled with shorter time requirements, can result in direct cost savings for our customers,” said Donkervoort. “In addition, certain versions of BCG catalysts use less palladium than classic catalysts. This provides obvious monetary benefits, when current palladium prices have risen dramatically.”

The CPhI Innovation Award is given each year at CPhI Worldwide, an international convention on pharmaceutical ingredients and intermediates. Taking place this September in Frankfurt, Germany, the event has grown to more than 20,000 industry professionals visiting some 1,500 exhibiting companies from more than 110 countries. The Innovation Award is given to ‘recognize and reward groundbreaking developments’ in process, product or business model innovations that have practical applications to bring benefits in pharmaceutical manufacturing.”     

About BASF
BASF’s Catalysts division is the world’s leading supplier of environmental and process catalysts.  The group offers exceptional expertise in the development of technologies that protect the air we breathe, produce the fuels that power our world and ensure efficient production of a wide variety of chemicals, plastics, adsorbents and other products.

BASF is the world’s leading chemical company: The Chemical Company. Its portfolio ranges from oil and gas to chemicals, plastics, performance products, agricultural products and fine chemicals. As a reliable partner, BASF helps its customers in virtually all industries to be more successful. With its high-value products and intelligent solutions, BASF plays an important role in finding answers to global challenges, such as climate protection, energy efficiency, nutrition and mobility. BASF has more than 95,000 employees and posted sales of almost €58 billion in 2007. BASF shares are traded on the stock exchanges in Frankfurt (BAS), London (BFA) and Zurich (AN). Further information on BASF is available on the Internet at www.basf.com