Wermuth Camille G
Prestwick Chemical, Boulevard Gonthier d'Andernach, 67400 Illkirch, France.
Drug Discov Today. 2006 Apr;11(7-8):348-54. doi: 10.1016/j.drudis.2006.02.006.
A survey of novel small-molecule therapeutics reveals that the majority of them result from analogue design and that their market value represents two-thirds of all small-molecule sales. In natural science, the term analogue, derived from the Latin and Greek analogia, has always been used to describe structural and functional similarity. Extended to drugs, this definition implies that the analogue of an existing drug molecule shares structural and pharmacological similarities with the original compound. Formally, this definition allows the establishment of three categories of drug analogues: analogues possessing chemical and pharmacological similarities (direct analogues); analogues possessing structural similarities only (structural analogues); and chemically different compounds displaying similar pharmacological properties (functional analogues).
一项针对新型小分子疗法的调查显示，其中大多数是通过类似物设计产生的，其市场价值占所有小分子销售额的三分之二。在自然科学中，“类似物”一词源自拉丁语和希腊语中的“analogia”，一直用于描述结构和功能上的相似性。延伸到药物领域，这个定义意味着现有药物分子的类似物与原始化合物在结构和药理学上具有相似性。从形式上讲，这个定义允许建立三类药物类似物：具有化学和药理学相似性的类似物（直接类似物）；仅具有结构相似性的类似物（结构类似物）；以及显示出相似药理特性的化学上不同的化合物（功能类似物）。
