Philipp Grosche

Structure-based design of substituted piperidines as a new class of highly efficacious oral direct Renin inhibitors.

A cis-configured 3,5-disubstituted piperidine direct renin inhibitor, (syn,rac)-1, was discovered as a high-throughput screening hit from a target-family tailored library. Optimization of both the prime and the nonprime site residues flanking the central piperidine transition-state surrogate resulted in analogues with improved potency and pharmacokinetic (PK) properties, culminating in the identification of the 4-hydroxy-3,5-substituted piperidine 31. This compound showed high in vitro potency toward human renin with excellent off-target selectivity, 60% oral bioavailability in rat, and dose-dependent blood pressure lowering effects in the double-transgenic rat model.

Discovery and structure-based optimization of adenain inhibitors.

The cysteine protease adenain is the essential protease of adenovirus and, as such, represents a promising target for the treatment of ocular and other adenoviral infections. Through a concise two-pronged hit discovery approach we identified tetrapeptide nitrile 1 and pyrimidine nitrile 2 as complementary starting points for adenain inhibition. These hits enabled the first high-resolution X-ray cocrystal structures of adenain with inhibitors bound and revealed the binding mode of 1 and 2. The screening hits were optimized by a structure-guided medicinal chemistry strategy into low nanomolar drug-like inhibitors of adenain.

Structure-based design and optimization of potent inhibitors of the adenoviral protease.

Adenoviral infections are associated with a wide range of acute diseases, among which ocular viral conjunctivitis (EKC) and disseminated disease in immunocompromised patients. To date, no approved specific anti-adenoviral drug is available, but there is a growing need for an effective treatment of such infections. The adenoviral protease, adenain, plays a crucial role for the viral lifecycle and thus represents an attractive therapeutic target. Structure-guided design with the objective to depeptidize tetrapeptide nitrile 1 led to the novel chemotype 2. Optimization of scaffold 2 resulted in picomolar adenain inhibitors 3a and 3b. In addition, a complementary series of irreversible vinyl sulfone containing inhibitors were rationally designed, prepared and evaluated against adenoviral protease. High resolution X-ray co-crystal structures of representatives of each series proves the successful design of these inhibitors and provides an excellent basis for future medicinal chemistry optimization of these compounds.