Sustainable Practices in Medicinal Chemistry Part 2: Green by Design

Abstract

With the development of ever-expanding synthetic methodologies, a medicinal chemist's toolkit continues to swell. However, with finite time and resources as well as a growing understanding of our field's environment impact, it is critical to refine what can be made to what should be made. This review seeks to highlight multiple cheminformatic approaches in drug discovery that can influence and triage design and execution impacting the likelihood of rapidly generating high-value molecules in a more sustainable manner. This strategy gives chemists the tools to design and refine vast libraries, stress "druglikeness", and rapidly identify SAR trends. Project success, i.e., identification of a clinical candidate, is then reached faster with fewer molecules with the farther-reaching ramification of using fewer resources and generating less waste, thereby helping "green" our field.

How imidazolium‐based ionic liquids solubilize the poorly soluble ibuprofen? A theoretical study

“…With the enhancement of environmental awareness, academia and industry are now encouraging the integration of green chemistry, sustainability, and eco‐efficiency into the pharmaceutical industry . However, industrial chemical processes or even pharmaceutical manufacturing processes often require large numbers of toxic and environmentally hazardous organic solvents, where the solvent losses account for about 50% of the greenhouse gas emissions from pharmaceutical manufacture .…”

“…However, industrial chemical processes or even pharmaceutical manufacturing processes often require large numbers of toxic and environmentally hazardous organic solvents, where the solvent losses account for about 50% of the greenhouse gas emissions from pharmaceutical manufacture . In order to solve the problem, some scientists have suggested that it is of great value to replace the widely used toxic organic solvents by safely, biodegradable, and environmentally friendly neoteric solvents for the development of sustainable pharmaceutical processes . Ionic liquids (ILs) as neoteric solvents, with the advanced characteristics of non‐volatility, non‐flammability, and high recyclability, have been proposed as green solvents for the extraction, separation, crystallization, and purification of drugs .…”

“…With the enhancement of environmental awareness, academia and industry are now encouraging the integration of green chemistry, sustainability, and eco-efficiency into the pharmaceutical industry. [1][2][3][4] However, industrial chemical processes or even pharmaceutical manufacturing processes often require large numbers of toxic and environmentally hazardous organic solvents, where the solvent losses account for about 50% of the greenhouse gas emissions from pharmaceutical manufacture. [5][6][7][8] In order to solve the problem, some scientists have suggested that it is of great value to replace the widely used toxic organic solvents by safely, biodegradable, and environmentally friendly neoteric solvents for the development of sustainable pharmaceutical processes.…”

“…[5][6][7][8] In order to solve the problem, some scientists have suggested that it is of great value to replace the widely used toxic organic solvents by safely, biodegradable, and environmentally friendly neoteric solvents for the development of sustainable pharmaceutical processes. 3,4,9,10 Ionic liquids (ILs) as neoteric solvents, with the advanced characteristics of non-volatility, non-flammability, and high recyclability, have been proposed as green solvents for the extraction, separation, crystallization, and purification of drugs. [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] Particularly, existing experimental data showed that most of imidazolium-based ILs were considered to be a biodegradable IL and to exhibit quite a low toxicity on human body, which made them even as the component of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs).…”

Sustainability by design: automated nanoscale 2,3,4-trisubstituted quinazoline diversity

“…Conservatively, it has been estimated that up to 2 million kilograms of waste are produced per year in drug discovery with up to 1.5 million kilograms of additional waste produced per year in preclinical studies. 6 Inevitably, drug compound optimization involves multiple low-yielding steps, often requires several solvent-intensive chromatographic purifications, and generates a large amount of plastic, glass and paper consumable waste. Key to sustainability in synthetic chemistry is waste reduction.…”