Polycyclic compounds: ideal drug scaffolds for the design of multiple mechanism drugs?

Polycyclic compounds: ideal drug scaffolds for the design of multiple mechanism drugs?

Van der Schyf Cornelis J; Geldenhuys Werner J

Neurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics

2009

2009-01

Recently there has been a resurging interest in developing multi-functional drugs to treat diseases with complex pathological mechanisms. Such drug molecules simultaneously target multiple etiologies that have been found to be important modulators in specific diseases. This approach has significant promise and may be more effective than using one compound specific for one drug target or, by a polypharmaceutical approach, using a cocktail of two or more drugs. Polycyclic ring structures are useful as starting scaffolds in medicinal chemistry programs to develop multi-functional drugs, and may also be useful moieties added to existing structures to improve the pharmacokinetic properties of drugs currently used in the clinic or under development. This review attempts to provide a synopsis of current published research to exemplify the use of polycyclic compounds as starting molecules to develop multi-functional drugs.

*Drug Design; Adamantane/chemistry/pharmacology; Animals; Central Nervous System Diseases/*drug therapy; Humans; Molecular Structure; Neuroprotective Agents/chemistry/*pharmacology/therapeutic use; Polycyclic Compounds/*chemistry/pharmacology/therapeutic use; Psychotropic Drugs/chemistry/*pharmacology/therapeutic use; Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship

Article information provided for research and reference use only. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).

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