Enamine Ltd., a chemical research organization and producer of novel building blocks and screening libraries, has today announced that it has expanded its collaboration on ZINC, a comprehensive online database of purchasable compounds curated by the Irwin and Shoichet laboratories in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Via ZINC, Enamine will provide researchers at UCSF and the global drug-discovery community with access to the company’s REAL database, a unique database of more than 300 million novel synthetically feasible chemical structures as an efficient source of potential new compounds for a breadth of drug discovery projects.
 
The REAL database is the most significant contribution to currently purchasable chemical space, accounting for over 90% of all structures in ZINC. The compounds are conveniently selected in ZINC and then synthesized by Enamine in a single step from its building block stock, ensuring quick delivery and a high success rate.
 
Michael Bossert, Head of Strategic Alliances at Enamine said: “The number of compounds that Enamine can quickly access with its stock of 150,000 building blocks is astonishing. ZINC is a powerful platform that can efficiently support our endeavors to further expand our chemical space coverage to the global drug discovery community. We are pleased to see the researchers at UCSF benefitting from the diversity and novelty of our structures in the REAL compound arrays.”
 
John Irwin, PhD, Adjunct Professor at the UCSF School of Pharmacy and curator of ZINC agreed: “As we strive to bridge the gap between chemoinformatics and biology, the importance of working within a purchasable chemical space cannot be underestimated. We are pleased to continue our collaboration with Enamine in exploring ways to provide novel chemical compounds, designed and synthesized specifically for each research project, to the global biomedical community.”
 
Most compounds from the REAL database have already been successfully uploaded to ZINC. Over the last year, 92% of the more than 250 compounds ordered from Enamine have been delivered successfully to UCSF.