Carbohydrate-based drugs multivalency

L. L. Kiessling, J. K. Pontrello, and M. C. Schuster, Synthetic multivalent carbohydrate ligands as effectors or inhibitors of biological processes, in C.-H. Wong, (Ed.), Carbohydrate-Based Drug Discovery, Wiley-VCH Weinheim, Germany, 2003, pp. 575-608. 

For new carbohydrate-based therapeutics to continue at this pace of product registration in the intermediate and longterm, several objectives must be reached. Technologies supplying carbohydrates in quality as well as in quantity must be refined or discovered. This includes any combination of automated, solid and solution phase, and enzymatic synthesis. Wok to determine whether carbohydrate multivalency is a successful approach to new drug discovery, or at best, a way to make interesting research tools needs to be done. Likewise, examples that illustrate how carbohydrate-based libraries can actually accelerate drug discovery need to be shown. 

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