Discovery of Isoindoline Amide Derivatives as Potent and Orally Bioavailable ADAMTS-4/5 Inhibitors for the Treatment of Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis (OA) treatment is a highly unmet medical need. Development of a disease-modifying OA drug (DMOAD) is challenging with no approved drugs on the market. Inhibition of ADATMS-4/5 is a promising OA therapeutics to target cartilage degradation and potentially can reduce joint pain and restore its normal function. Starting from the reported ADAMTS-5 inhibitor GLPG1972, we applied a scaffold hopping strategy to generate a novel isoindoline amide scaffold. Representative compound 18 showed high potency in ADATMS-4/5 inhibition, as well as good selectivity over a panel of other metalloproteases. In addition, compound 18 exhibited excellent druglike properties and showed better pharmacokinetic (PK) proliles than GLPG1972 cross-species. Compound 18 demonstrated dose-dependent efficacy in two in vivo rat osteoarthritis models.