Chiral drugs

The chiral drug industry soared through a major milestone 2000, as annual sales in this rapidly growing segment of the drug market topped $100 billion for the first time. The biological messenger molecules and cell surface receptors that medicinal chemists try to affect are chiral, so drug molecules must match their asymmetry. A second reason for the sector's growth arises from the continuing concern of the Food & Drug Administration that companies make appropriate choices about whether to develop inherently chiral drug molecules in their single-isomer or racemate forms. These setbacks have been troubling not only to the drug company innovators but also to the fine chemicals producers who had shared the risk of developing the drugs. There is much recent interest in metabolites of known drugs as well as in their enantiomers as potential drugs themseves.