Fragment Based Drug Discovery (FBDD) continues to advance as an efficient and alternative screening paradigm for the identification and optimization of novel chemical matter. To enable FBDD across a wide range of pharmaceutical targets, a fragment screening library is required to be chemically diverse and synthetically expandable to enable critical decision making for chemical follow-up and assessing new target druggability. In this manuscript, the Pfizer fragment library design strategy which utilized multiple and orthogonal metrics to incorporate structure, pharmacophore and pharmacological space diversity is described. Appropriate measures of molecular complexity were also employed to maximize the probability of detection of fragment hits using a variety of biophysical and biochemical screening methods. In addition, structural integrity, purity, solubility, fragment and analog availability as well as cost were important considerations in the selection process. Preliminary analysis of primary screening results for 13 targets using NMR Saturation Transfer Difference (STD) indicates the identification of uM-mM hits and the uniqueness of hits at weak binding affinities for these targets.
Thrombin, a serine protease product of the blood coagulation cascade, plays a central role in hemostasis and thrombosis.1 Thrombin cleaves fibrinogen to form fibrin and activates Factor XIII, which cross-links and stabilizes the formed clot. By limited proteolysis, thrombin activates Factors V, VIII, and XI, which promote further thrombin production. Thrombin is a very potent stimulator of platelet shape change, aggregation, and secretion. In addition, thrombin is mitogenic for vascular smooth muscle and can activate endothelial cells, promoting cell adhesion. Because of these actions, the proteolytic
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