Optimized synthesis of anti-COVID-19 drugs aided by retrosynthesis software

ABSTRACT

Considering the millions of COVID-19 patients worldwide, a global critical challenge of low-cost and efficient anti-COVID-19 drug production has emerged. Favipiravir is one of the potential anti-COVID-19 drugs, but its original synthetic route with 7 harsh steps gives a low product yield (0.8%) and has a high cost ($68 per g). Herein, we demonstrated a low-cost and efficient synthesis route for favipiravir designed using improved retrosynthesis software, which involves only 3 steps under safe and near-ambient air conditions. A yield of 32% and cost of $1.54 per g were achieved by this synthetic route. We also used the same strategy to optimize the synthesis of sabizabulin. We anticipate that these synthetic routes will contribute to the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.