Synthesis and pharmacology of 3,4-dihydro-3-oxo-1,4-benzoxazine-8-carboxamide derivatives, a new class of potent serotonin-3 (5-HT3) receptor antagonists

Hearing loss drug discovery and medicinal chemistry: Current status, challenges, and opportunities

Hearing loss is a severe high unmet need condition affecting more than 1.5 billion people globally. There are no licensed medicines for the prevention, treatment or restoration of hearing. Prosthetic devices, such as hearing aids and cochlear implants, do not restore natural hearing and users struggle with speech in the presence of background noise. Hearing loss drug discovery is immature, and small molecule approaches include repurposing existing drugs, combination therapeutics, late-stage discovery optimisation of known chemotypes for identified molecular targets of interest, phenotypic tissue screening and high-throughput cell-based screening. Hearing loss drug discovery requires the integration of specialist therapeutic area biology and otology clinical expertise. Small molecule drug discovery projects in the global clinical portfolio for hearing loss are here collated and reviewed. An overview is provided of human hearing, inner ear anatomy, inner ear delivery, types of hearing loss and hearing measurement. Small molecule experimental drugs in clinical development for hearing loss are reviewed, including their underpinning biology, discovery strategy and activities, medicinal chemistry, calculated physicochemical properties, pharmacokinetics and clinical trial status. SwissADME BOILED-Egg permeability modelling is applied to the molecules reviewed, and these results are considered. Non-small molecule hearing loss assets in clinical development are briefly noted in this review. Future opportunities in hearing loss drug discovery for human genomics and targeted protein degradation are highlighted.

Microwave-Assisted Synthesis of Bioactive Six-Membered Heterocycles and Their Fused Analogues

This review describes the formation of six-membered heterocyclic compounds and their fused analogues under microwave activation using modern organic transformations including cyclocondensation, cycloaddition, multicomponents and other modular reactions. The review is divided according to the main heterocycle types in order of increasing complexity, starting with heterocyclic systems containing one, two and three heteroatoms and their fused analogues. Recent microwave applications are reviewed, with special focus on the chemistry of bioactive compounds. Selected examples from the 2006 to 2015 literature are discussed.

A One-Pot Synthesis of Pyrido[2,3-b][1,4]oxazin-2-ones

Pyrido[2,3-b][1,4]oxazin-2-ones are conveniently prepared in excellent yields by a one-pot annulation of N-substituted-2-chloroacetamides with 2-halo-3-hydroxypyridines with use of cesium carbonate in refluxing acetonitrile. The key transformation features a Smiles rearrangement of the initial O-alkylation product and subsequent cyclization.

Synthesis of 5-HT3 receptor antagonists, [11C]Y-25130 and [11C]YM060

Two high-affinity 5-HT3 receptor ligands, Y-25130 and YM 060, have been labeled with 11C for use in PET studies to measure 5-HT3 receptors. The [11C]Y-25130 was prepared by N-methylation of nor-Y-25130-BH3 complex with [11C]CH3I in the presence of K2CO3 followed by HCl hydrolysis. Likewise, N-methylation of nor-YM060 gave [11C]YM060. After HPLC separation, the decay-corrected radiochemical yield of the two 11C-labeled ligands was 34-40% based on [11C]CH3I, the specific activity was 10-12 GBq/mumol at 35-40 min from EOB, and the radiochemical and chemical purities were > 99%. In mice, the brain uptake of the two compounds was the lowest among the tissues investigated, but the level of the brain radioactivity increased with time.