Design, Synthesis, and Preclinical Profiling of GSK3739936 (BMS-986180), an Allosteric Inhibitor of HIV-1 Integrase with Broad-Spectrum Activity toward 124/125 Polymorphs

Allosteric HIV-1 integrase inhibitors (ALLINIs) have garnered special interest because of their novel mechanism ofaction: they inhibit HIV-1 replication by promoting aberrant integrase multimerization, leading to the production of replication-deficient viral particles. The binding site of ALLINIs is in a well-defined pocket formed at the interface of two integrase monomersthat is characterized by conserved residues along with two polymorphic amino acids at residues 124 and 125. The design, synthesis,and optimization of pyridine-based allosteric integrase inhibitors are reported here. Optimization was conducted with a specificemphasis on the inhibition of the 124/125 polymorphs such that the designed compounds showed excellent potency in vitroagainstmajority of the 124/125 variants .In vivo profiling of promising preclinical lead29showed that it exhibited a good pharmacokinetic(PK) profile in preclinical species, which resulted in a low predicted human efficacious dose. However, findings in rat toxicology studies precluded further development of29