Why Not Bromine?

So here's a question for the medicinal chemists: how come we don't like bromoaromatics so much? I know I don't, but I have trouble putting my finger on just why. I know that there's a ligand efficiency argument to be made against them - all that weight, for one atom - but there are times when a bromine seems to be just the thing. There certainly are such structures in marketed drugs. Some of the bad feelings around them might linger from the sense that it's sort of unnatural element, as opposed to chlorine, which in the form of chloride is everywhere in living systems.

But bromide? Well, for what it's worth, there's a report that bromine may in fact be an essential element after all. That's not enough to win any arguments about putting it into your molecules - selenium's essential, too, and you don't see people cranking out the organoselenides. But here's a thought experiment: suppose you have two drug candidate structures, one with a chlorine on an aryl ring and the other with a bromine on the same position. If they have basically identical PK, selectivity, preliminary tox, and so on, which one do you choose to go on with? And why?

If you chose the chloro derivative (and I think that most medicinal chemists instinctively would, for just the same hard-to-articulate reasons we're talking about), then what split in favor of the bromo compound would be enough to make you favor it? How much more activity, PK coverage, etc. do you need to make you willing to take a chance on it ...

Source: In the Pipeline - August 21, 2014 Category: Chemists Tags: Drug Development Source Type: blogs