Taking Medicines

The Organic Solution

Is it just me, or do all chemists guess the structure of a medicine before they take it? After having a guess, I then Google it and look up the synthesis, where possible.

I am currently using Ketoconazole for a skin condition (over-share, sorry). Immediately I knew there was a ketone (keto) and a nitrogen containing heterocycle (azole = five-membered nitrogen ring containing at least one other heteroatom) in there.  Conazoles are a common type of fungicide containing an imidazole or triazole ring so that narrowed it down further for me. I could not predict any thing more so looked up the structure (DOI: 10.1021/jm00194a023). It is actually a lot more complex than I expected.

ChemDraw2

Ketoconazole

Similarly, a few years ago I took Metronidazole and, as usual, I tried to predict the structure from the name. I guessed there was a nitrogen heterocycle, probably an imidazole ring and possibly nitro…

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