Fungerps: discovery of the glucan synthase inhibitor enfumafungin and development of a new class of antifungal triterpene glycosides

Covering: up to 2024Fungal pathogens are a major threat to public health, with emerging resistance to all three classes of antifungals that are currently available and increased incidence of invasive fungal infections among hospitalized patients. Ibrexafungerp is a semi-synthetic analog of enfumafungin and the first antifungal agent approved in more than 20 years since the launch of caspofungin, the first of echinocandins. This new drug approval was made possible after a long arduous journey lasting 25 years by dedicated and talented medicinal chemists from two companies that undertook tedious atom-by-atom chemical modification of the natural product enfumafungin, a glycosylated fernane-type triterpenoid isolated from the fungus