Rational Drug Design Leading to the Identification of a Potent 5-HT2C Agonist Lacking 5-HT2B Activity

The 5-HT2C receptor is an attractive drug target in the quest for new therapeutics to treat a variety of human disorders. We have previously undertaken a structural optimization campaign that has led to some potent and moderately selective 5-HT2C receptor agonists. After expanding our structure–function library, we were able to combine our data sets so as to allow the design of compounds of improved selectivity and potency. We disclose herein the structural optimization of our previously reported 5-HT2B/5-HT2C agonists, which has led to the identification of a highly selective 5-HT2C agonist, (+)-trans-[2-(2-cyclopropylmethoxyphenyl)cyclopropyl]methylamine hydrochloride, with an EC50 of 55 nM and no detectable agonism at the 5-HT2B receptor.