Novel Concept for Super-Soft Topical Drugs: Deactivation by an Enzyme-Induced Switch into an Inactive Conformation

  • ACS Med Chem Lett. 2023 May 30;14(6):841-845. doi: 10.1021/acsmedchemlett.3c00169.
Gebhard Thoma  1 ,  Eric Vangrevelinghe  1 ,  Alexandre Luneau  1 ,  Philippe Piechon  1 ,  Christian Beerli  2 ,  Hans-Guenter Zerwes  2
Affiliations
  • 1. Global Discovery Chemistry, Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, 4002 Basel, Switzerland.
  • 2. Immunology Disease Area, Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, 4002 Basel, Switzerland.
PMID: 37312861 DOI: 10.1021/acsmedchemlett.3c00169
Abstract

We present a novel concept for the design of supersoft topical drugs. Enzymatic cleavage of the carbonate ester of the potent pan Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitor 2 releases hydroxypyridine 3. Due to hydroxypyridine-pyridone tautomerism, 3 undergoes a rapid conformational change preventing the compound to assume the bioactive conformation required for binding to JAK kinases. We demonstrate that the hydrolysis in human blood and the subsequent shape change lead to the deactivation of 2.

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