Organic chemistry in drug discovery
Malcolm MacCoss1, Thomas A Baillie
1Department of Basic Chemistry, Merck Research Laboratories, 126 East Lincoln Avenue, Rahway, NJ 07065, USA. malcolm_maccoss@merck.com
Abstract:
The role played by organic chemistry in the pharmaceutical industry continues to be one of the main drivers in the drug discovery process. However, the precise nature of that role is undergoing a visible change, not only because of the new synthetic methods and technologies now available to the synthetic and medicinal chemist, but also in several key areas, particularly in drug metabolism and chemical toxicology, as chemists deal with the ever more rapid turnaround of testing data that influences their day-to-day decisions.
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