The importance of molecular complexity in the design of screening libraries

Compound high-quality criteria: a new vision to guide the development of drugs, current situation

For several decades, the pharmaceutical industry has suffered due to major issues such as reductions of the number of FDA approved drugs and biologics. Several analyses have been highlighted that the 'druglikeness' is one of the strategies to improve succeed rates of screening such as, for instance, high-throughput screening (HTS), and then hits (as starting point), leads and clinical candidates. It is clear that the improvement of compound quality accelerates the drug discovery projects. The monitoring of several indices to avoid 'molecular obesity' (ADMET problems) of final drugs from good-quality 'low-fat' starting points represents today a powerful strategy of optimization process. The development of the new guides to find drugs highlighting attempts at improving the attrition rate from hits to final medicines by focusing on how to improve the druggability of hits, leads and drugs during the drug discovery process represents a key approach to design next better generation of medicines.

Current complexity: a tool for assessing the complexity of organic molecules

Molecular complexity for a synthetic organic chemist is difficult to define, though intuitively known. Despite the importance of this concept, the quantitative assessment of complexity within organic chemistry has remained a challenge. We report here on the development of an approach for generating a unique complexity index, which is reflective of both intrinsic molecular complexity and extrinsic synthetic complexity. This index is based on a community's perception of complexity, within the context of current technology, calculating a molecule's current complexity. Our approach allows for a direct comparison between molecules, the analysis of trends within research programs, it enables an assessment (and comparison) of new synthetic approaches to known molecules and is capable of following a molecule's apparent complexity as it changes over time.