Medicinal chemistry

Medicinal or pharmaceutical chemistry is a scientific discipline at the intersection of quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSAR). Pharmaceutical chemistry is focused on quality aspects of medicines and aims to assure fitness for the purpose of medicinal products.

Medicinal chemistry is a highly interdisciplinary science combining physical chemistry.

Process of drug discovery

Discovery

The first step of combinatorial chemistry.

Recent developments in robotics and miniaturization have incredibly accelerated and automated the screening process. Typically, a company will assay over 100,000 individual compounds using a method called high-throughput screening (HTS), before moving to the optimization step.

Optimization

The second step of drug discovery involves the synthetic modification of the hits in order to improve the biological properties of the compound pharmacophore. The pharmacokinetics and least toxicity. QSAR involves mainly physical chemistry and molecular docking tools (CoMFA and CoMSIA), that leads to tabulated data and first and second order equations. There are many theories, being the most relevant Hansch's analysis that involves Hammett electronic parameters, Esteric parameters and logP parameters.

See also: Lipinski's Rule of Five

Development

The final step involves the rendering the lead compounds suitable for use in clinical trials. This involves the optimization of the synthetic route for bulk production, and the preparation of a suitable drug formulation.

Training in medicinal chemistry

Many workers in the field do not have formal training in medicinal chemistry. Graduate (postgraduate) level programs do exist in medicinal chemistry, but frequently the broader education in a chemistry graduate program can provide many of the skills needed.