TIANYAO breaks through the bottleneck of raw materials and biologically extracts "gold" for medicine

Recently, Tianjin TIANYAO Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd "phytosterol biotransformation androstenedione" new process project, one of the first batch of special fund projects for scientific and technological innovation in Tianjin, was successfully completed through municipal acceptance This project not only breaks the monopoly of this technology in European and American countries, solves the bottleneck of long-term dependence on a single raw material for corticosteroid APIs in China, but also marks a major breakthrough of Tianjin biomedical industry in the field of national steroid hormone drug technology research, which has become an important scientific and technological achievement for the city to adhere to self innovation and vigorously develop circular economy The reporter learned that androstenedione, as an intermediate of corticosteroids, is widely used in anti-inflammatory, anti allergy, anti shock and other medical fields For a long time, due to the technical barriers of European and American countries, the production of androstenedione in China has been dependent on the chemical synthesis method of "saponin diene androstenedione" Compared with the current technology in China, "phytosterol biotransformation androstenedione" technology has great advantages in raw materials, methods and costs, which conforms to the concept of sustainable development of circular economy According to the person in charge of the project, diosgenin is widely used as raw material in China's corticosteroid drug manufacturing industry This kind of diosgenin is extracted from wild plants such as earthworm and Zingiber officinale Each ton of diosgenin produced requires 200 tons of Zingiber officinale, resulting in the destruction of a large number of wild resources and the occupation of cultivated land The original process is a chemical synthesis reaction, which uses more than 10 kinds of organic solvents, such as pyridine, benzene, toluene, etc The new process is a biological process with mild reaction The raw materials are obtained from the leftovers after the plant refining It is a non-toxic inorganic salt and plant extract No toxic substances are produced in the fermentation process, and the three wastes are discharged less Only ethyl acetate, methyl alcohol and acetone are the organic solvents used for extraction and refining The quantity, type and toxicity are greatly reduced, and they can be recycled and reused, The pollution of production process to environment is greatly reduced At the same time, the new process shortens the production cycle, reduces the energy consumption and production cost by simplifying the reaction steps It is reported that the cost of the new technology is reduced by more than 50% compared with the traditional technology, which greatly improves the competitiveness of the products at home and abroad At present, the company's production of androstenedione has occupied more than 90% of the domestic market share, and the profit is expected to exceed 20 million yuan in 2009.