RESEARCH FRONT CSIRO PUBLISHING Aust. J. Chem. 2021, 74, 16–27 Account https://doi.org/10.1071/CH20244 Personal Accounts of Australian Drug Discovery at the Public–Private Interface* Jonathan B. Baell Medicinal Chemistry Theme, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (Parkville Campus), Monash University, Parkville, Vic. 3052, Australia. Email:
[email protected] The public–private interface is a vibrant and invigorating stage for drug discovery and can allow for relatively higher risk but more rewarding research. Although adequate resourcing is a perennial challenge, persistence, optimism, and flexibility will pay dividends and can allow for a thoroughly rewarding career. In this account of chronological research experiences, selected examples are used to support this contention. Manuscript received: 5 August 2020. Manuscript accepted: 8 September 2020. Published online: 6 October 2020. Introduction ment of chorea associated with Huntington’s disease.[3] With Perhaps the most fitting way to introduce what became a career in improved activity against the elucidated pharmacological target medicinal chemistry is to outline that which might be said to (VMAT2, or vesicular monoamine transporter 2), the deuterated underpin it, this being those all-important formative postgraduate eutomer deutetrabenazine (Fig. 1) was approved by the USA studies. This began in the late 1980s at the University of FDA in early 2017 for the same indication and sold by Teva Tasmania, the chemistry department of which operated at a very Pharmaceuticals as Austedo. The first deuterated drug approved high standard, with names such as Frank Larkins (physical, Head by the FDA, deutetrabenazine has improved pharmacokinetic of Department), John Bremner (organic), Elaine Browne properties as a result of rendering the methoxy groups more (organic), Alan Arnold (spectroscopy), Michael Hitchman metabolically robust.