The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has resulted in millions of deaths and threatens public health and safety. Despite the rapid global spread of COVID-19 vaccines, effective oral antiviral drugs are urgently needed. Here, we describe the discovery of S-217622, the first oral noncovalent, nonpeptidic SARS-CoV-2 3CL protease inhibitor clinical candidate. S-217622 was discovered via virtual screening followed by biological screening of an in-house compound library, and optimization of the hit compound using a structure-based drug design strategy. S-217622 exhibited antiviral activity in vitro against current outbreaking SARS-CoV-2 variants and showed favorable pharmacokinetic profiles in vivo for once-daily oral dosing. Furthermore, S-217622 dose-dependently inhibited intrapulmonary replication of SARS-CoV-2 in mice, indicating that this novel noncovalent inhibitor could be a potential oral agent for treating COVID-19.

Monopolar spindle 1 (Mps1) is an attractive oncology target due to its high expression level in cancer cells as well as the correlation of its expression levels with histological grades of cancers. An imidazo[1,2-a]pyrazine 10a was identified during an HTS campaign. Although 10a exhibited good biochemical activity, its moderate cellular as well as antiproliferative activities needed to be improved. The cocrystal structure of an analogue of 10a guided our lead optimization to introduce substituents at the 6-position of the scaffold, giving the 6-aryl substituted 21b which had improved cellular activity but no oral bioavailability in rat. Property-based optimization at the 6-position and a scaffold change led to the discovery of the imidazo[1,2-b]pyridazine-based 27f, an extremely potent (cellular Mps1 IC50 = 0.70 nM, A549 IC50 = 6.0 nM), selective Mps1 inhibitor over 192 kinases, which could be orally administered and was active in vivo. This 27f demonstrated remarkable antiproliferative activity in the nanomolar range against various tissue cancer cell lines.

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