Multicomponent Reactions: Challenges and Opportunities for Pharmaceutical Industry

Abstract Multicomponent reactions (MCRs) deliver numerous conceptual and production advantages over stepwise synthetic approaches toward the development of complex and pharmacologically important molecules and are widely considered by industry as well as academia. A surplus of MCRs mingled with classical organic reactions has been published in the context of novel drug synthetic strategies and has extended chemical space vastly. Although very few products based on MCRs are marketed, this work highlights the challenges in implementation of MCRs in industrial setups. Therefore, this article provides a short overview of the opportunities and challenges associated with the application of MCRs in pharmaceutical industries with some examples of MCRs incorporated in generic drug synthesis and drug discovery processes.