What Happens in Successful Optimizations? A Survey of 2018–2024 Literature

carbon atoms, H-bond acceptors, and natural product fragments, and a decreased number of carboaromatic rings. The occurrence of common ring systems increases in optimization, and on average, 70% of the starting compound structure is retained in the candidate. An extensive selection of illustrative optimization examples is presented, "lead-likeness" as a desirable attribute of starting compounds is appraised, and trends in optimization strategies are discussed.