Antiviral Activity of Pyrimidine Containing Compounds: Patent Review

Viruses are still the most prevalent infectious pathogens on a worldwide scale, with many of them causing life-threatening illnesses in humans. Influenza viruses, because of their significant morbidity and mortality, continue to pose a major threat to human health. According to WHO statistics, seasonal influenza virus epidemics are predicted to cause over 2 million severe illness cases with high death rates yearly. The whole world has been suffering from the COVID-19 epidemic for two years and is still suffering so far, and the deaths from this virus have exceeded three million cases. Because the great majority of viral infections do not have a specific medication or vaccination, discovering novel medicines remains a vital task. This review covers reports in the patent literature from 1980 to the end of 2021 on the antiviral activities of pyrimidine moieties. The patent database, SciFinder, was used to locate patent applications. A large variety of pyrimidine molecules have been produced and tested for antiviral activity over the last decade. These molecules were reported to inhibit a wide range of viruses, including influenza virus, respiratory syncytial virus, rhinovirus, dengue virus, herpes virus, hepatitis B and C, and human immunodeficiency virus. The cytotoxicity of the developed pyrimidine derivatives was tested in almost all reported studies and the selectivity index was calculated to show the selectivity and safety of such molecules. From the remarkable activity of pyrimidine compounds as antivirals for several dangerous viruses, we expect that these derivatives will be used as potent drugs in the very near future.