Novel pirfenidone derivatives: synthesis and biological evaluation.

In order to discover novel anti-pulmonary fibrosis agents, a series of novel pirfenidone derivatives were designed and synthesized. All compounds were investigated for their anti-pulmonary activity and characterized by 13C and 1H nuclear magnetic resonance and high-resolution mass spectrometry. Preliminary studies on their biological activity showed that all target compounds showed different degrees of inhibition on pulmonary fibrosis, and most of the derivatives were significantly better than pirfenidone.