Synthesis and SAR studies of novel heteroaryl fused tetracyclic indole-diamide compounds: Potent allosteric inhibitors of the hepatitis C virus NS5B polymerase

Presented here are initial structure–activity relationship (SAR) studies on a series of novel heteroaryl fused tetracyclic indole-based inhibitors of the hepatitis C viral polymerase, NS5B. The introduction of alternative heterocyclic moieties into the indolo-fused inhibitor class significantly expands the reported SAR and resulted in the identification of pyridino analogs, typified by compounds 44 and 45 that displayed excellent potency against the NS5B polymerase of both HCV 1a and HCV 1b genotypes.