Reaxys®
CHEMICAL MANUFACTURING
Case Study: Dr. Rabih-Gabriel Jaouhari, R&D
Director and General Manager of PR euroCHEM
The speed and precision of Reaxys helps chemicals manufacturers to answer
client questions quickly and thoroughly, thus winning more contracts
Summary
When PR euroCHEM receives a compound synthesis request, Dr. Rabih-Gabriel
Jaouhari’s first step is always to turn to the literature to check what is known about
the compound as well as the viability and efficiency of the synthesis. In this exclusive
interview, he explains his process and shows how using Reaxys for such searches has
accelerated chemical manufacturing at his company.
Case Study: Dr. Rabih-Gabriel Jaouhari, R&D Director of PR euroCHEM
“We’ve had a high level of success with Reaxys in terms of
speed, precision and finding answers.”
—Dr. Rabih-Gabriel Jaouhari, PR euroCHEM
To learn more about PR euroCHEM, visit
www.preurochem.com
Dr. Rabih-Gabriel Jaouhari, PhD, DSc, is the R&D Director and General Manager of
PR euroCHEM. He runs the daily operations of the business, which includes assessing
the viability of synthesis methods for all new substance requests, ensuring adherence
to risk and safety procedures, and giving crucial input on procurement, marketing
strategy and logistics. With over 20 years of experience in the synthesis of chemical
intermediates and pharmaceutical active ingredients, he is very familiar with the
needs of chemical and biochemical R&D as well as with the trends in the industry.
He has published 50 papers and holds patents related to prostaglandin, leukotriene
intermediate chemistry, fine chemicals and natural product-based drug intermediates.
Founded in 1999 by Dr. Jaouhari, PR euroCHEM has grown to become a global supplier
of pharmaceutical ingredients, fine chemicals, metabolites, forensic substances and a
whole range of products for organic chemical reactions. The company’s original focus
was on prostaglandin, which has one of the most complex chemistries in organic
synthesis, and they have continued to focus on low-volume, high-value substances,
primarily pharmaceutical intermediates.
Challenge
Client requests to PR euroCHEM can be for the synthesis of known chemicals
using more cost-effective, environmental or sustainable methods; the production
of compounds that are similar to known ones; or the creation of completely new
molecules. The client may want a particular methodology or they may ask PR
euroCHEM to design the whole synthesis. Regardless of the type of request, every
project at the company always begins with research.
Dr. Jaouhari explains: “When a request comes in, before our scientists do any work, I
look for literature to see what has already been done related to that compound. If the
client wants us to use a particular methodology, I assess that synthesis and make sure
it is viable and efficient. If they ask for a new compound, I must not only ensure that
it is indeed a new compound, but also that there is a valid synthesis method that will
generate the requested quantities at a cost the client can afford.”
Those cost considerations are part of why Dr. Jaouhari always makes the initial
assessment of client requests. Determining the cost of a given synthesis is far
more complex than a layperson might realize. “People imagine that there’s a linear
progression of cost—that 10 grams of a substance will cost 10 times more than a
single gram, and 50 grams 50 times more, and so on. But that’s not the case. It can
be extremely expensive to scale up production to higher volumes; or it can be costineffective to generate a very low volume.”
Assessing each request necessitates checking more than just a few recent organic
synthesis journals. “To prove the validity of a method and justify our cost, time and
resource estimates, we must have evidence. But we can’t just find one piece of evidence
and assume that is proof: we have to correlate it with evidence from other sources. It’s
critical that we have access to a wide range of literature and to patents. As a scientist, I
know that I can’t simply trust that the first paper I find is the perfect resource.”
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Case Study: Dr. Rabih-Gabriel Jaouhari, R&D Director of PR euroCHEM
Dr. Jaouhari makes sure his literature searches encompass early work too. “Modern papers often aren’t as
rigorous as old papers. I believe it is due to the modern pressure to publish quickly: sometimes the studies
aren’t ready for publication. Results can be published without sufficient evidence to back them up. Most
significantly for our work, the methods are sometimes incomplete: it’s hard to reproduce the work or it
generates a completely different yield. Older papers tend to be a better source of complete, reproducible
methods. I always include older sources.”
Literature and patents are used to assess new projects and prepare cost and time estimates. When the client
accepts the proposal, then Dr. Jaouhari meets with his scientists and together, they go back to the literature
to plan the lab work. “Through both phases, the challenge is to find ‘the right thing’: the right evidence about
the right substance in the right patents and articles; the right synthesis pathway for the client’s means. It’s
important to effectively use structure and structure similarity searches—you really can’t rely on nomenclature
because the multiple names for a given compound may not be consistently used. We cannot proceed with our
work if we cannot construct the right queries to get accurate and relevant answers—and since our clients want
answers quickly, we need a solution that supports quick research.”
Solution
At PR euroCHEM, the primary solution for finding these answers is Reaxys. Dr. Jaouhari and his colleagues
use it to find patents, articles and synthesis pathways. “When we started out, we used a different chemistry
research solution, but 7 years ago, we switched to Reaxys. We discovered that it is easier to use Reaxys to
search for a substance based on structure and immediately see its property and reaction data, then access
related literature and patents, and finally assess all the known synthesis pathways. We no longer use that other
solution. It was so easy to get lost in the information it returned. Reaxys is quicker, easier to use and I would
even say more accurate.”
Dr. Jaouhari explains his approach: “If the structure is known, I use ISIS or ChemDraw to create it and import
it into Reaxys for the query. If that doesn’t retrieve anything, I modify the structure to see what that returns. It
could help me find a similar compound, which is a good starting point. When I’ve found what I need, I can go
on to assess all the relevant literature about that to see what’s worth reading further. And I can use AutoPlan or
the manual synthesis planner to see the various options for making the substance.”
Property data can also interest the scientists at PR euroCHEM. “Sometimes a client will approach us with
a request to investigate an unidentified chemical. This involves working back from the properties that can
be tested to try to find the structure. Then we synthesize what we believe it to be and determine if we’ve
succeeded. Searching for compounds with particular properties and then looking at their structures and
syntheses is also straightforward and fast with Reaxys.”
Business Impact
Dr. Jaouhari and his team are very happy with Reaxys. “The greatest benefit of Reaxys is speed. With our
previous research solution, we had to investigate every piece of literature that came back from a search. Reaxys
reduces the amount of literature we need to read. It also rapidly provides more useful information that we
might need: besides synthesis information, we can also get comparative structure–activity data for bioactive
compounds, safety and toxicity data, and an overview of the published facts in such a way that we can see if
there are any inconsistencies. The content is vast but it’s very discoverable.”
The important question is whether Reaxys contributes to the company’s success. Dr. Jaouhari believes it does.
“With full objectivity, I can say that we’ve had a high level of success with Reaxys in terms of speed, precision
and finding answers. The ease of discovery means we can answer clients’ questions quickly, which means we
get the contract. To put it in numbers: with the previous solution, it took 4 or 5 days to produce a project plan
and quotation. With Reaxys, I can do the same work in 2 days—in business terms, that’s a huge time saving.”
Ultimately, Dr. Jaouhari is very satisfied with Reaxys and with his company’s successes. “PR euroCHEM has an
excellent rate of success: over 90%. Each project has its own challenges, but they are all exciting. I get great
enjoyment out of successful synthesis. It’s an act of creation! I live with each project, treating them as huge
puzzles where I must find all the pieces. It can be stressful, but I love the feeling—it’s a good stress!”
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Reaxys helps chemical companies develop and improve
chemical products by supporting synthesis optimization
and enabling the identification of desirable and undesirable
chemical properties in intermediate and end products.
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REAXYS is a trademark of RELX Intellectual Properties SA, used under license. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V.
March 2017