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Fluorinated compounds present opportunities for drug discovery

A practical method has been devised to synthesize compounds that have previously been almost impossible to make. The combination of fluorine atoms and amide groups in the compounds might be useful in pharmaceuticals.
  1. Jonathan Clayden

    1. Jonathan Clayden is at the School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TS, UK.

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In medicinal chemistry, the chemical group known as the amide is king. Amides consist of a nitrogen atom linked to a carbonyl group (C=O), and featured in all but four of the top 40 bestselling drugs in 2018 (see go.nature.com/30f709w). Writing in Nature, Scattolin et al.1 expand the range of amides available for drug discovery by showing how to synthesize a previously inaccessible group of compounds known as N-trifluoromethylamides, in which the amide is closely associated with three fluorine atoms.

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Nature 573, 37-38 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02611-7

References

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