Discovery of Multiple Lead Compounds as M2 Inhibitors through the Focused Screening of a Small Primary Amine Library

The discovery of new anti-influenza drugs is urgent, particularly considering the recent threat of swine flu. Although amantadine derivatives are the only M2 drugs for influenza virus A, their use is limited in the US due to drug resistance. Here we report the discovery of multiple M2 inhibitor lead compounds that were rapidly generated through focused screening of a small primary amine library which was designed using a scaffold-hopping strategy based on amantadine.