Chemistry beyond candidates

Six years after ramping up its focus on research chemistry, AstraZeneca plc is showcasing the fruits in three areas central to innovative compound creation: new paradigms for covalent target modification, algorithms for predicting macrocycle cell permeability, and strategies for adding functional groups to aromatic compounds.

The advances were published in a series of papers in the last two months, three in Nature Chemical Biology and one in Nature Communications, sending a message that the company sees medicinal chemistry as a core expertise and principal value driver for its pipeline...