Acridine drugs discovery

Some of the older, and cheaper, drugs are still in use despite the problems of resistance and have thus been included in this review of the use of heterocycles in coccidiosis control. Both academic and industrial research in this area continues apace with field trials on arprinocid (68) and reports of activity in new structural classes, e.g. azauracils (69) and acridines (70). Whether these very recent discoveries will have any longer lasting utility than many of their predecessors remains to be seen. 

After Allied troops had captured Tunis in May of 1943, the drug fell together with pharmacological reports into the hands of Americans, who confirmed back home its superior efficacy compared to quinine and atabrine. The latter, an acridine dye, also known as mepacrine, originated as well from the discovery programme at Bayer and was first synthesised by Fritz Mietzsch and Hans Mauss and tested by Walter Kikuth around 1932. Bayer s collaboration and distribution partner in the US, Winthrop Chemical Corporation, had increased its production of atabrine by 1944 to annually 3,500 million tablets, with an additional 2 million tablets from the British ICl, in support of Allied forces. The... 

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