Coumarin derivatives as therapeutic candidates: a review of their updated patents (2017-present).

Introduction: Coumarins constitute a family of heterocyclic compounds that have been extensively studied as possible drugs in the pharmaceutical research to support human health.

Areas covered in this review: A survey of patent publications from 2017 to mid-2024, taken from Google Scholar, Web of Science, Scopus, or PubMed analyzes coumarins and their derivatives. It covers synthetic methods, hybridization techniques, and assessments of their biological effects in laboratory and biological studies, such as cytotoxic, antitumor, anticancer, cardiovascular, anti-atheromatic, antidiabetic, anti-asthmatic and antioxidant properties. Additionally, it presents and discusses several pharmaceutical applications for treatment and compositions involving these compounds. Structural activity relationships and mechanism of action are presented and discussed.

Expert opinion: The authors suggest that (i) numerous areas of biology-pharmacology need to be considered: selectivity, in vivo studies, toxicity, bioavailability and drug-likeness, the mechanism of action in animals and humans, evaluation of more efficient and selective biological tests; (ii) synthetic technique outbalance in the discovery and production of coumarins with greater selectivity. Their clinical evaluation will be critical to assess therapeutic utility. The coumarins, for which extended biological investigations confirmed their mechanism of action, can serve as lead or hit structures for the design of new libraries with more potent molecules.