Anthelmintic resistance in human and animal pathogenic helminths has been spreading in prevalence and severity to a point where multidrug resistance against the three major classes of anthelmintics--the benzimidazoles, imidazothiazoles and macrocyclic lactones--has become a global phenomenon in gastrointestinal nematodes of farm animals. Hence, there is an urgent need for an anthelmintic with a new mode of action. Here we report the discovery of the amino-acetonitrile derivatives (AADs) as a new chemical class of synthetic anthelmintics and describe the development of drug candidates that are efficacious against various species of livestock-pathogenic nematodes. These drug candidates seem to have a novel mode of action involving a unique, nematode-specific clade of acetylcholine receptor subunits. The AADs are well tolerated and of low toxicity to mammals, and overcome existing resistances to the currently available anthelmintics.

The configurational lability of enantiomers can be characterized by different terms, each defining a specific process. Racemization relates to the macroscopic and statistical process of the irreversible transformation of one of the enantiomers into the racemic mixture. Enantiomerization refers to the microscopic and molecule process of the reversible conversion of one enantiomer into the other. Methods allowing the experimental determination of rate constants of racemization (kraJ and enantiomerization (kemt) are discussed, and it is shown that hem, = 1/2 krac. Neglect of this fact is a source of some confusion in the literature. When two or more elements of chirality are present in a molecule and one of them is configurationally labile, epimerization occurs, a particular case of diastereomerization. These processes of interconversion between diastereomers are kinetically more complicated than racemization and enantiomerization since the rate constants of the forward and reverse reactions are always different (kdiastlA-to-B # bst/B-to-A), however small the difference. An important aspect of the configurational labhty of stereoisomeric drugs is the time scale of the phenomenon. When interconversion occurs to a simcant extent during the residence time of a drug in the body, a pharmacological time scale is implied. In contrast, the pharmaceutical time scale refers to slower rates of interconversion that affect the configurational purity of a drug during its shelf-life. o 1995 Wiey-Liss, Inc.

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Jung, M., Lees, P., Seewald, W., King, J. N. Analytical determination and pharmacokinetics of robenacoxib in the dog. J. vet. Pharmacol. Therap. 32, 41-48.An analytical method was developed and validated for the measurement of the novel analgesic and anti-inflammatory drug robenacoxib in blood and plasma of dogs and cats. To prevent nonreproducible carry-over effects, an initial solid phase extraction procedure was followed by high pressure liquid chromatography analysis for samples with concentrations in the range 500 to 20 000 ng ⁄ mL. To improve accuracy, samples of concentration 3 to 100 ng ⁄ mL were analyzed by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. Applying these methods, blood concentration-time profiles and pharmacokinetic variables of robenacoxib in dogs were determined in a four-phase cross-over study, which compared different routes of administration of the drug, including intravenous (i.v.) injection, oral application with and without feed, and subcutaneous (s.c.) application. After i.v. administration the mean clearance from blood was 0.81 L ⁄ kg ⁄ h, the volume of distribution was 0.77 L ⁄ kg for the elimination phase and 0.24 L ⁄ kg for steady-state, and the terminal half-life in blood was 0.63 h. Maximum blood concentrations were obtained in less than 1 h following oral or s.c. application. Absolute bioavailability was 88% after s.c. injection, 84% after oral administration to fasted dogs, but was reduced to 62% when applied orally to fed dogs. In canine and feline plasma the degree of binding of robenacoxib to plasma protein in vitro was greater than 98%. The blood:plasma concentration ratio was 0.44:1 in the dog and 0.65:1 in the cat. In conclusion analytical methods for the quantification of robenacoxib in blood and plasma in the dog and cat were developed and validated. In dogs, robenacoxib has good bioavailability after oral (84%) and subcutaneous (88%) administration.(Paper

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