Recent applications of microwave irradiation to medicinal chemistry

The demands made on the pharmaceutical industry are changing at an unprecedented pace, making modern drug discovery dependent on high speed organic synthesis. Over the last few years, different technologies have been introduced in medicinal chemistry laboratories in order to improve their productivity. Microwave-assisted organic synthesis is proving to be instrumental in the rapid synthesis of compounds with new and improved biological activities. This review highlights the application of this approach as a way to explore analogue synthesis in medicinal chemistry over the last 3 years. We describe a number of examples taken from the literature that are related to various targets within different therapeutic areas. Clearly microwave irradiation is becoming a fundamental tool for optimizing key steps in the synthesis of target compounds within the field of drug discovery.