Practical Advances in SFC for the Purification of Pharmaceutical Molecules

Recent progress in supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) instrumentation has led to renewed interest in the technique as a powerful tool for chiral and achiral separations of pharmaceutical molecules, for both analytical and preparative purposes. The “green” aspect of the technique and low running costs make SFC technology particularly attractive for preparative chromatography because it considerably reduces the consumption of organic solvents. These factors led to a revised strategy for purification and to a general interest in evaluating possible extensions for the application of packed SFC (pSFC). The results of this extensive evaluation have led to the establishment of SFC platforms for preparative achiral purifications as a standard practice, alongside its use for preparative chiral separations.