Pharmaceutical Chemistry Today—Changes, Problems, and Opportunities

Dissatisfaction with empirical methods, high expectations of the public, poorly harmonized international regulations, and rising costs have induced pharmaceutical research to search for new approaches. As a consequence, the medicinal chemist's professional activity is in a state of change. His synthetic strategy is being increasingly influenced by the reasoning of molecular biology. Novel classes of biologically active compounds demand the development of new synthetic methods beyond the scope of modern preparative organic chemistry: enzymes and microorganisms, cell cultures, and genetic engineering are harnessed to supply highly complex structures. Major efforts are devoted to the development of reliable structure‐activity relationships to rationalize his work. Thus the field of medicinal chemistry stretches from physical and physical organic chemistry far into the realm of biosciences, and the interdisciplinary character of this research is rapidly increasing. The author endeavors to convey an impression of this complex subject with the aid of selected examples.