Terpenoid products, world production

Examination of the charts in Chapters 6.1.1 to 6.1.3 shows that the American and eastern tropical areas contribute more that the African tropics to the diversity of natural products. In particular the African tropics are poor in terpenoids, except secologanin, which is involved on a world basis in the formation of mixed-biogenesis alkaloids. 

The combinatorial decoration or derivatization of existing natural products is a popular method for library creation. Among targets for such exercises are the alkaloids yohimbine and scopolamine, terpenoids and steroids, and the heterocyclic peptide antibiotic GE-2270A (Figure 11). In the latter case, combinatorial variation was instrumental in the discovery of a developmental candidate now in clinical trials at Vicuron. Pfizer, the world s largest pharmaceutical company, recently acquired Vicuron for the sum of 1.9 billion, a mark of approval for natural product-based combinatorial chemistry. 

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