- Open-science research initiative, COVID Moonshot and the AI-driven Structure-enabled Antiviral Platform (ASAP) consortium, delivered a promising pre-clinical candidate
- 2,000 new compounds generated for the programme are now available from Enamine’s catalogue
Enamine, a leading chemistry and R&D services company, today announced that it was a key synthetic chemistry contributor to a first-of-its-kind, open-science approach that led to the development of a promising broad-spectrum coronavirus antiviral pre-clinical candidate. Enamine’s chemistry platform delivered over 2,000 new compounds during the early stages of the programme that resulted in the discovery of pre-clinical candidate ASAP-0017445. The candidate is designed to be a direct-to-generic, globally accessible treatment ready for future coronavirus pandemics.
The pre-clinical drug candidate ASAP-0017445, which exhibited encouraging preliminary safety and efficacy results, was recently nominated by Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), a non-profit medical research organisation, as a highly effective antiviral for coronaviruses[1]. The drug was developed by the COVID Moonshot and ASAP (AI-driven Structure-enabled Antiviral Platform) Discovery Consortium, formed during the COVID-19 pandemic, of which Enamine is a member from the early days. The consortia aimed to accelerate open-science antiviral drug discovery and deliver oral antivirals to prevent future pandemics. Enamine played a pivotal role in the early stages of the COVID Moonshot programme, enabling rapid production of novel molecules, compound management, and logistics, which significantly accelerated the discovery cycle. The Company also performed Tier 1 ADME tests in close proximity to the compound depository, which was essential in shortening Design-Make-Test-Analyse cycles. Further optimisation of the lead series of compounds produced by Enamine was conducted by MedChemica, resulting in the development of ASAP-0017445.
“We are proud to have been a part of this groundbreaking open science collaboration, where researchers from across the world have come together to advance vital drug discovery efforts. We are grateful to all the other organisations who played a part in contributing to the global effort to strengthen resilience against future pandemics,” said Vladimir Ivanov, Executive Vice President of Enamine.
The structure of ASAP-0017445 was publicly disclosed in March 2025[2]. The patent[3] and all data generated during the compound’s development have recently been published to support the open science approach. All 2,000 compounds generated during this collaboration are now available from Enamine’s catalogue.
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