Acknowledged as powerful tool for successful identification of lead series, fragment-based drug design is widely implemented in industry and academia. The fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD) has emerged as an alternative approach to traditional lead identification via high-throughput screening. Unlike other screening approaches, FBDD identifies smaller compounds, which bind to different parts of a biological target.
The primary rationale for fragment-based screening is that the identified hits give access to a broader chemical space while screening a limited number of compounds. FBDD gives a better chance for the final lead compound to have standard drug-likeness parameters. On the other hand, they are simpler molecules (fragments) with fewer unavoidable interactions and, thus, a much better possibility of orienting within the binding site favorably.
To meet researchers’ expectations in this field, an in-house team of medicinal chemists has designed a unique collection of 1456 small molecules (MW<300) arising from the smart fragmentation of approved drugs (1500 drugs, up to year 2016).
