The importance of synthetic chemistry in the pharmaceutical industry

Synthetic innovation in drug development Chemical synthesis plays a key role in pharmaceutical research and development. Campos et al. review some of the advantages that have come from recent innovations in synthetic methods. In particular, they highlight small-molecule catalysts stimulated by visible light, enzymes engineered for versatility beyond their intrinsic function, and bio-orthogonal reactions to selectively modify proteins for conjugation. High-throughput techniques are also poised to accelerate methods optimization from small-scale discovery to large-scale production, and complementary machine-learning approaches are just coming into focus. Science , this issue p. eaat0805