Bio Nebraska 2017 Newsletter

Rieke Metals Builds on Founders’ Legacy in Chemistry​

Pick a focus, and then be great at it. That’s the way that Rieke Metals has developed their position as a specialty supplier of organometallic and organic chemistry products.

Lincoln-based Rieke makes a broad line of organozinc halide reagents and poly-3-alkylthiophenes. They offer over 800 organometallic building blocks and over 8,000 fine chemicals and can custom manufacture many more. In some niches, they’re a world leader in capability and volume.

Brad Stratton has been working at Rieke Metals for nearly 20 years. Now wearing many hats, he joined the company after graduation from UNL in chemistry and computer science.

“One of the benefits of working at Rieke Metals is the opportunity to be involved in many aspects of the business that are meaningful to the success of the business,” Stratton says.

Reuben and Loretta Rieke founded Rieke Metals in 1991 with the goal of developing highly reactive metals and novel reagents to advance scientific research. Dr. Rieke spent over 40 years researching and manufacturing organozinc and Grignard reagents.

The company, purchased in 2014 by Blue Diamond Capital, has carried on with Dr. Rieke’s legacy and core values, paying strict attention to quality and agile responsiveness.

The Rieke team has over 125 years of shared experience conducting inert atmosphere reactions. They partner with many of the largest and most innovative pharmaceutical and electronics companies in the world, while also serving the academic research community.

Rieke Metals core competencies cross over many diverse market segments, including:

  • Preparation and use of organometallic reagents
  • Synthesis involving air & moisture sensitive chemistry
  • The manufacture, handling and use of zinc, magnesium and other organometallic reagents
  • Carbon-Carbon bond forming reactions
  • Synthesis using condensation reactions
  • Preparation of specialty organic compounds
  • Process development and scale-up

Rieke Metals’ goals include growing its pipeline of new products offered across all relevant market segments and expanding the firm’s manufacturing capability to maintain projects from R&D through commercialization.

“We want to partner with customers in the pharmaceutical, ag, electronics and material science industries to support their work in development through scale-up to manufacturing,” Stratton says. “Our technical abilities and know-how are instrumental in R&D of novel compounds.”

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