The Reagent Makers
Bethany A. Halford · Chemical & Engineering News · 2013
Academic chemists have many yardsticks for measuring success: publications, patents, citations, awards. But professors know they’ve really made it when a chemical invented in their lab makes it into the pages of a reagent catalog. Whether it’s the behemoth “Aldrich Handbook of Fine Chemicals,” which lists more than 40,000 compounds sold by Sigma-Aldrich, or a smaller niche catalog, such as that from Strem Chemicals, getting a reagent into a catalog is the equivalent of a musician being featured in the pages of Rolling Stone. But these days you don’t have to be a rock star of chemistry to have a chemical become commercially available. Vendors such as Sigma-Aldrich and Strem primarily seek out interesting reagents for their portfolios by poring over publications, attending conferences, and talking with their customers. But if a chemist has a compound that could be of interest to the larger community, the firms tell C&EN, that ...