CHAPTER 2
2 ALICYCLIC COMPOUNDS
The slimness of this chapter very aptly reflects the importance of aromatic
and heterocyclic moieties as cores for therapeutic agents. This section
includes several agents that depend on the presence of on a single alicyclic
group for their activity. Though a few of the compounds included in this
chapter do include a benzene ring, that group does not seem to play a
major role in their biological activity. Sizeable chapters were devoted in
the earlier volumes in this series to the discussion of drugs based on the
steroid nucleus. This area, in common with the prostaglandins that open
this chapter, has received relatively little attention in recent years. A
handful of steroids thus round out this section.
1. MONOCYCLIC COMPOUNDS
A. Prostaglandins
The discovery of the prostaglandins in the mid-1960s led to an enormous
amount of research in both industrial and academic laboratories.^1 Much of
this work was arguably based on the mistaken premise that these hormone-
like compounds would provide the basis for the design of major new
classes of therapeutic agents. Analogy with the large number of important
The Organic Chemistry of Drug Synthesis, Volume 7. By Daniel Lednicer
Copyright#2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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