Fasidotril: The First Dual Inhibitor of Neprilysin and ACE

The Design of Multi-target Drugs to Treat Cardiovascular Diseases: Two (or more) Birds on one Stone

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) comprise a group of diseases and disorders of the heart and blood vessels, which together are the number one cause of death worldwide, being associated with multiple genetic and modifiable risk factors, and that may directly arise from different etiologies. For a long time, the search for cardiovascular drugs was based on the old paradigm "one compound - one target", which aims to obtain a highly potent and selective molecule with only one desired molecular target. Although historically successful in the last decades, this approach ignores the multiple causes and the multifactorial nature of CVD's. Thus, over time, treatment strategies for cardiovascular diseases have changed and, currently, pharmacological therapies for CVD are mainly based on the association of two or more drugs to control symptoms and reduce cardiovascular death. In this context, the development of multitarget drugs, i.e, compounds having the ability to act simultaneously at multiple sites, is an attractive and relevant strategy that can be even more advantageous to achieve predictable pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamics correlations as well as better patient compliance. In this review, we aim to highlight the efforts and rational pharmacological bases for the design of some promising multitargeted compounds to treat important cardiovascular diseases like heart failure, atherosclerosis, acute myocardial infarction, pulmonary arterial hypertension and arrhythmia.

Silicon-oriented regio- and enantioselective rhodium-catalyzed hydroformylation

Hydroformylation of 1,2-disubstituted alkenes usually occurs at the α position of the directing heteroatom such as oxygen atom and nitrogen atom. By contrast, to achieve hydroformylation on the β position of the heteroatom is a tough task. Herein, we report the asymmetric rhodium-catalyzed hydroformylation of 1,2-disubstituted alkenylsilanes with excellent regioselectivity at the β position (relative to the silicon heteroatom) and enantioselectivity. In a synthetic sense, we achieve the asymmetric hydroformylation on the β position of the oxygen atom indirectly by using the silicon group as a surrogate for the hydroxyl. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations are carried out to examine energetics of the whole reaction path for Rh/YanPhos-catalyzed asymmetric hydroformylation and understand its regioselectivity and enantioselectivity. Our computational study suggests that the silicon group can activate the substrate and is critical for the regioselectivity.

Hydroformylation of 1,2-disubstituted alkenes usually occurs at the α position of the directing heteroatom. Here, the authors report the asymmetric rhodium-catalyzed hydroformylation of 1,2-disubstituted alkenylsilanes with excellent regioselectivity at the β position (relative to the silicon heteroatom) and enantioselectivity.

Dual inhibition: a novel promising pharmacological approach for different disease conditions

To overcome the problems associated with polypharmacy, which include medication non compliance, adverse drug reactions, drug-drug interactions and increased pill-burden, various strategies, such as sustained-release drugs and fixed-dose combination regimens (polypills), have been developed. Out of these, a novel and very much promising approach is the use of dual-action drugs. Amongst the dual-action drugs, there is a class of compounds known as dual inhibitors, which possess the dual inhibitory activity. The most common examples of dual inhibitors are rivastigmine, ladostigil, asenapine, phenserine, amitriptyline, clomipramine, doxepin and desipramine. This review article focuses on the conventional drugs used in different diseases which possess dual inhibition activity as well as those which are still in the preclinical/clinical phase.