Nitrilase is a crucial enzyme in the field of biocatalysis, which can be used for biosynthesis of various carboxylic acids from corresponding nitriles. This approach is usually employed for preparing pharmaceutical intermediates because of its superior catalytic characteristics including mild reaction conditions, high conversion efficiency, prominent selectivity, and eco-friendly nature. Therefore, the nitrilase-mediated biocatalysis conforms to the development directions of atom economy and green chemistry. It has drawn substantial attention from scholars and entrepreneurs due to its application potential. Several studies have been performed to explore its application in synthesis of several pharmaceutical intermediates and numerous nitrilases have been developed as the industrial catalysts. Whereas, mining and modification of nitrilases are gradually becoming research focuses. Moreover, with the rapid advances of modern molecular biology as well as the advent of the third wave of biocatalysis, gene engineering has become a common approach for constructing recombinant strains. The significant advantages of nitrilase-mediated biocatalysis can be represented in maximum degree through improving the catalytic activity of nitrilase and modifying its catalytic properties, which would lay the foundation for more applications of nitrilases in the future. In this review, the application and development for the synthesis of pharmaceutical intermediates with nitrilase are summarized, as well as unprecedented opportunities and challenges in this field are discussed.

Contents
1 Introduction
2 Research overview of nitrilase
3 Existence range of nitrilase
4 Type of nitrilase catalysts and obtaining manners
4.1 Wild enzyme
4.2 Genetically engineered enzyme
5 The applications in the synthesis of pharmaceutical intermediates
5.1 Picolinic acid
5.2 (R)-Mandelic acid and its derivatives
5.3 Cyanocarboxylic acid
5.4 Pharmaceutical amino acid
5.5 Glycolic acid
6 Conclusion and outlook