The case for South Africa as the next pharma hub

Chemical synthesis is around a century behind its rivals when it comes to manufacturing. While other fields have adopted a continuous production line, the pharmaceutical and fine chemicals industries are still reliant on a stop-start series of steps to complete the necessary reactions. This is because almost any synthetic process requires the use of vastly different chemical and physical conditions between steps, and, to make matters worse, many products also require careful downstream processing and purification to create material of sufficient purity.