Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology

The application of guidelines linked to the concept of drug-likeness, such as the 'rule of five', has gained wide acceptance as an approach to reduce attrition in drug discovery and development. However, despite this acceptance, analysis of recent trends reveals that the physical properties of molecules that are currently being synthesized in leading drug discovery companies differ significantly from those of recently discovered oral drugs and compounds in clinical development. The consequences of the marked increase in lipophilicity--the most important drug-like physical property--include a greater likelihood of lack of selectivity and attrition in drug development. Tackling the threat of compound-related toxicological attrition needs to move to the mainstream of medicinal chemistry decision-making.

The influence of drug-like concepts on decision-making in medicinal chemistry

Since the early 1990s, several technological and scientific advances - such as combinatorial chemistry, high-throughput screening and the sequencing of the human genome - have been heralded as remedies to the problems facing the pharmaceutical industry. The use of these technologies in some form is now well established at most pharmaceutical companies; however, the return on investment in terms of marketed products has not met expectations. Fragment-based drug design is another tool for drug discovery that has emerged in the past decade. Here, we describe the development and evolution of fragment-based drug design, analyse the role that this approach can have in combination with other discovery technologies and highlight the impact that fragment-based methods have made in progressing new medicines into the clinic.

A decade of fragment-based drug design: strategic advances and lessons learned.

With an increasing interest in RNA therapeutics and for targeting RNA to treat disease, there is a need for the tools used in protein-based drug design, particularly DOCKing algorithms, to be extended or adapted for nucleic acids. Here, we have compiled a test set of RNA–ligand complexes to validate the ability of the DOCK suite of programs to successfully recreate experimentally determined binding poses. With the optimized parameters and a minimal scoring function, 70% of the test set with less than seven rotatable ligand bonds and 26% of the test set with less than 13 rotatable bonds can be successfully recreated within 2 A heavy-atom RMSD. When DOCKed conformations are rescored with the implicit solvent models AMBER generalized Born with solvent-accessible surface area (GB/SA) and Poisson–Boltzmann with solvent-accessible surface area (PB/SA) in combination with explicit water molecules and sodium counterions, the success rate increases to 80% with PB/SA for less than seven rotatable bonds and 58% with AMBER GB/SA and 47% with PB/SA for less than 13 rotatable bonds. These results indicate that DOCK can indeed be useful for structure-based drug design aimed at RNA. Our studies also suggest that RNA-directed ligands often differ from typical protein–ligand complexes in their electrostatic properties, but these differences can be accommodated through the choice of potential function. In addition, in the course of the study, we explore a variety of newly added DOCK functions, demonstrating the ease with which new functions can be added to address new scientific questions.

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DOCK 6: Combining techniques to model RNA–small molecule complexes

To create a drug, nature's blueprints often have to be improved through semisynthesis or total synthesis (chemical postevolution). Selected contributions from industrial and academic groups highlight the arduous but rewarding path from natural products to drugs. Principle modification types for natural products are discussed herein, such as decoration, substitution, and degradation. The biological, chemical, and socioeconomic environments of antibacterial research are dealt with in context. Natural products, many from soil organisms, have provided the majority of lead structures for marketed anti-infectives. Surprisingly, numerous "old" classes of antibacterial natural products have never been intensively explored by medicinal chemists. Nevertheless, research on antibacterial natural products is flagging. Apparently, the "old fashioned" natural products no longer fit into modern drug discovery. The handling of natural products is cumbersome, requiring nonstandardized workflows and extended timelines. Revisiting natural products with modern chemistry and target-finding tools from biology (reversed genomics) is one option for their revival.

Antibacterial Natural Products in Medicinal Chemistry—Exodus or Revival?

Improving the hit-to-lead process: data-driven assessment of drug-like and lead-like screening hits.

The present application relates to novel dipyridyl-dihydropyrazolones, processes for their preparation, their use for treatment and/or prophylaxis of diseases and their use for the preparation of medicaments for treatment and/or prophylaxis of diseases, in particular cardiovascular and hematological diseases and kidney diseases, and for promoting wound healing.

4-(pyridin-3-yl)-2-(pyridin-2-yl)-1,2-dihydro-3h-pyrazol-3-one derivatives as specific hif-prolyl-4-hydroxylase inhibitors for treating cardiovascular and haematological diseases

One target-multiple indications: a call for an integrated common mechanisms strategy.

https://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/anie.201103888

Editorial: The Importance of Chemistry for the Future of the Pharma Industry

The invention relates to novel, substituted dihydropyrazolon-derivatives, to methods for their production, to their use for treating and/or for preventing diseases and their use for producing medicaments for treating and/or for preventing diseases, in particular cardiovascular and haematological diseases, kidney diseases and for promoting the healing of wounds.

Hanno Wild

Papers

Improving the hit-to-lead process: data-driven assessment of drug-like and lead-like screening hits.

4-(pyridin-3-yl)-2-(pyridin-2-yl)-1,2-dihydro-3h-pyrazol-3-one derivatives as specific hif-prolyl-4-hydroxylase inhibitors for treating cardiovascular and haematological diseases

One target-multiple indications: a call for an integrated common mechanisms strategy.

Editorial: The Importance of Chemistry for the Future of the Pharma Industry

Substituted dihydropyrazolones and use thereof as hif-prolyl-4 -hydroxylase inhibitors