Drug-repurposing studies are testing a range of compounds to treat COVID-19, but manufacturers may struggle to meet demand if any of these candidates prove effective against SARS-CoV-2. The pandemic has already strained global supply chains and limited the availability of a number of products, including hand sanitizer and diagnostic test reagents. The raw materials needed to make a new antiviral drug would most likely face similar pressures. But a team led by Tim Cernak of the University of Michigan has used an AI-based retrosynthesis program called Synthia to devise alternative routes to 12 leading drug candidates under investigation. The work appears on a preprint server and has not been peer reviewed (ChemRxiv 2020, DOI: 10.26434/chemrxiv.12765410.v1).

If umifenovir, a broad-spectrum antiviral, can fight COVID-19, then computer-designed synthetic routes could make it easy and cheap to produce. Science's COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation. As scientists uncover drugs that can treat coronavirus infections, demand will almost certainly outstrip supplies--as is already happening with the antiviral remdesivir. To prevent shortages, researchers have come up with a new way to design synthetic routes to drugs now being tested in some COVID-19 clinical trials, using artificial intelligence (AI) software. The AI-planned new recipes--for 11 medicines so far--could help manufacturers produce medications whose syntheses are tightly held trade secrets.