Novel prodrugs with a spontaneous cleavable guanidine moiety

Water-soluble prodrug strategy is a practical alternative for improving the drug bioavailability of sparingly-soluble drugs with reduced drug efficacy. Many water-soluble prodrugs of sparingly-soluble drugs, such as the phosphate ester of a drug, have been reported. Recently, we described a novel water-soluble prodrug based on O-N intramolecular acyl migration. However, these prodrug approaches require a hydroxy group in the structure of their drugs, and other prodrug approaches are often restricted by the structure of the parent drugs. To develop prodrugs with no restriction in the structure, we focused on a decomposition reaction of arginine methyl ester. This reaction proceeds at room temperature under neutral conditions, and we applied this reaction to the prodrug strategy for drugs with an amino group. We designed and synthesized novel prodrugs of representative sparingly soluble drugs phenytoin and sulfathiazole. Phenytoin and sulfathiazole were obtained as stable salt that were converted to parent drugs under physiological conditions. Phenytoin prodrug 3 showed a short half-life (t1/2) of 13min, whereas sulfathiazole prodrug 7 had a moderate t1/2 of 40min. Prodrugs 3 and 7 appear to be suitable for use as an injectable formulation and orally administered drug, respectively.