12 drug candidates debuted in San Diego

Medicinal chemists revealed the structures of a dozen clinical candidates during the “First-Time Disclosures” symposium on March 26 at the American Chemical Society Spring 2025 meeting in San Diego. Schrödinger’s H. Rachel Lagiakos, who organized the perennially popular session on behalf of the ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry, promised attendees that it would be “an incredible day of science.” Hundreds of attendees packed into a conference room to see the new molecules, which could become drugs for fighting infections, cancer, neurological disorders, and cardiovascular disease. Candidate: FG-2101 Presenter: Seth Cohen, University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and Blacksmith Medicines Target: Uridine diphosphate-3- O - (hydroxymyristoyl)- N -acetylglucosamine deacetylase (LpxC) Disease: Gram-negative bacterial infections UCSD chemistry professor Seth Cohen cofounded Blacksmith Medicines hoping to find molecules that can target metalloenzymes. Roughly one-third of enzymes have metals in their active sites, Cohen said, so this is a rich area for drug discovery.