Next 13^th December, 2023, the Madeira Chemistry Research Centre (CQM) will organize the seminar "Present drug-likeness filters in medicinal chemistry during the hit, lead, and clinical candidate optimization process: An analysis", with Professor Serge Mignani, to be held at the University of Madeira.

ABSTRACT
During the past decade, decreasing the attrition rate of drug development candidates reaching the market has become one of the major challenges in pharmaceutical research and drug development (R&D). To facilitate the decision-making process, and to increase the probability of rapidly finding and developing high-quality compounds, numerous multiparametric guidelines, also known as rules and ligand metrics, have been developed including a quantitative estimate of drug-likeness (QED). However, what are the ‘best’ descriptors and how far can we simplify these drug-likeness prediction tools based on molecular properties in terms of the numerous, complex properties that they relate to? In this presentation, we will survey and analyze the current and recent hit and lead physicochemical optimization parameters, including ligand efficiency metrics for drug-likeness indexes, and analyze their drug-likeness properties. We will also present and discuss the ‘best’ descriptors for monitoring physicochemical parameters during optimization and also how far we can simplify these drug-likeness prediction tools during the multiparametric optimization process (MOP) for determining the potency and safety drug profiles of compounds in humans. Finally, we propose a simple strategy for applying rules and metrics in the drug discovery process to aid the design of compounds to help us prioritize the best drug-like compounds and predict ADME behavior in humans.

Professor Serge Mignani, from the Centre d’Etudes et de Recherche sur le Médicament de Normandie and the Argobio Studio (France) was, for more than 40 years, researcher in one of the biggest pharmaceutical industries, Rhône-Poulenc, currently named Sanofi, where he served as director of the Medical Chemistry Department. He is now a consultant for several big and medium pharmaceutical industries (France and USA) and Institutes (France, China, Portugal, and India). He collaborates with the University of Madeira since 2013 and is officially a CQM researcher since 2017, being responsible for the Medicinal Chemistry area and nanomedicine translation activities.