Less Is The Expense, More Is The Benefit In Medicines Use.

Cross-coupling reactions -- the joining of fragments of molecules with the aid of a metal catalyst -- are a critical part of pharmaceutical production, usually relying on expensive, rare metals like palladium. Researchers at the University of Rochester and the University of Maryland, developed a three-component cross-coupling reaction that produces less expensive synthetics of hard to produce pharmaceutical compounds in one step using iron.

The development simplifies an expensive and complex multi-step process to generate pharmaceutical reactions using iron as a catalyst.