Discovery of 2,6-difluorobenzyl ether series of phenyl ((R)-3-phenylpyrrolidin-3-yl)sulfones as surprisingly potent, selective and orally bioavailable ROR gamma t inverse agonists.
Duan, J.J., Jiang, B., Lu, Z., Stachura, S., Weigelt, C.A., Sack, J.S., Khan, J., Ruzanov, M., Wu, D.R., Yarde, M., Shen, D.R., Zhao, Q., Salter-Cid, L.M., Carter, P.H., Murali Dhar, T.G.(2020) Bioorg Med Chem Lett 30: 127441-127441
- PubMed: 32736080 
- DOI: 10.1016/j.bmcl.2020.127441
- Primary Citation of Related Structures:  
7JH2 - PubMed Abstract: 
In an effort to discover oral inverse agonists of RORγt to treat inflammatory diseases, a new 2,6-difluorobenzyl ether series of cyclopentyl sulfones were found to be surprisingly more potent than the corresponding alcohol derivatives. When combined with a more optimized phenyl ((R)-3-phenylpyrrolidin-3-yl)sulfone template, the 2,6-difluorobenzyl ethers yielded a set of very potent RORγt inverse agonists (e ...