Medicinal
chemistry plays a fundamental and underlying role in
chemical biology, pharmacology, and medicine to discover safe and
efficacious drugs. Small molecule medicinal chemistry relies on iterative
learning cycles composed of compound design, synthesis, testing, and
data analysis to provide new chemical probes and lead compounds for
novel and druggable targets. Using traditional approaches, the time
from hypothesis to obtaining the results can be protracted, thus limiting
the number of compounds that can be advanced into clinical studies.
This challenge can be tackled with the recourse of enabling technologies
that are showing great potential in improving the drug discovery process.
In this Perspective, we highlight recent developments toward innovative
medicinal chemistry strategies based on continuous flow systems coupled
with automation and bioassays. After a discussion of the aims and
concepts, we describe equipment and representative examples of automated
flow systems and end-to-end prototypes realized to expedite medicinal
chemistry discovery cycles.
The first in-flow selenium-mediated catalysis has been realized under eco-friendly conditions to convert alkenoic acids into hydroxy lactones with a high regio- and diastereo-selectivity ratio.
The potential of integrating flow synthesizers, statistical design of experiments and automation has been exemplified to realize the streamlined etherification of pregnenolone to the neurosteroid 3β-methoxypregnenolone (MAP4343).
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