Development of a Transfer Hydrogenation Controlled by Nitrogen Flow
en Route to Belzutifan
In this presentation, we review the development of Belzutifan. Although the chemistry may present as an ordinary transfer hydrogenation, what makes this case special is how we have applied concepts of simple reaction engineering to control the process with an unusual overhead nitrogen sparge.
Despite very aggressive timelines, this team combined expertise in chemistry, engineering, modeling and process safety to unlock a somewhat delicate but superior synthesis.
About the Presenter
Kevin Stone
Associate Principal Scientist, Merck & Co., Inc
Kevin Stone is combination data-scientist reaction-engineer at Merck, where he has been for 7 years. In that time, Kevin has consulted on Merck’s most challenging reaction problems across the pipeline including for five now-approved medicines. This experience has helped Kevin cultivate expertise in process optimization, scale-up, and characterization especially through the application of data-rich tools for mechanistic insight. Kevin aspires to maximize both data per gram and knowledge per datum through the marriage of lab automation and applied mathematics.
