Fluorinated Compounds in Medicinal Chemistry: Recent Applications, Synthetic Advances and Matched-Pair Analyses

In recent years, several new fluorinated functional groups have been employed in medicinal chemistry. This review will highlight some recent developments in this area. We draw attention to useful synthetic advances for the installation of fluorine-containing groups. In addition, we examine the application of some fluorinated functional groups that have recently been gaining popularity in drug discovery. We use matched-pair analysis to assemble aggregate data on the impact on potency of one of these groups, pentafluorosulfanyl, as compared to trifluoromethyl. We further used matchedpair analysis to identify some interesting effects on in vitro ADME properties of replacing H by F on certain moieties. Keywords: Difluoroalkyl, fluorine, matched-pairs analysis, metabolic stability, pentafluorosulfanyl, trifluoromethylcyclopropyl.