Abstract

Compound Library Generation using Flow Chemistry

Andrew Mansfield, Flow Chemistry Leader, Syrris

Pursuing new classes of compounds which can be used as new medicines for treatment of diseases is not a simple task. Researchers often create new active compounds from scratch, through a laborious process involving synthesizing and testing thousands of compounds aiming to find those suitable to be tested in human beings.
In this context, Medicinal Chemistry is an interdisciplinary science at the interface of chemical biology, pharmacology, and medicine playing a fundamental role to define novel therapeutic approaches and discover new drugs. One of the major purposes of medicinal chemistry is the design and synthesis of new lead compounds for druggable targets. This process involves the synthesis and testing of often tens of thousands of exploratory compounds to disclose one new drug. From a medicinal chemist’s view point the synthesis of diverse compounds to screen is a key part of the drug discovery process. Chemists are constantly looking for alternative solutions to solve limitations of chemical synthesis, to increase the tools in their toolbox. The adoption of enabling chemical technologies as automation and flow systems have enabled chemists to shorten iterative learning cycles through early discovery to production and to the point of care.

The content of the presentation will cover a range of topic areas around how flow chemistry impacts and enables the generation of new, diverse compound libraries through the use of automated flow chemistry techniques to accelerate the early drug discovery process. While chemists at each stage of the drug discovery and development process will see specific benefits when implementing continuous flow techniques, the pharmaceutical industry’s desire to ultimately move towards the continuous manufacturing of future drugs means all stages of the drug lifecycle need to be aware of – and potentially implementing – continuous flow.