A lead compound (i.e. the "leading" compound, not lead metal) in drug discovery is a chemical compound that has pharmacological or biological activity and whose chemical structure is used as a starting point for chemical modifications in order to improve potency, selectivity, or pharmacokinetic parameters.
Lead compounds are often found in high-throughput screenings ("hits") or are secondary metabolites from natural sources.
Newly invented pharmacologically active moieties may have poor druglikeness and may require chemical modification to become drug-like enough to be tested biologically or clinically.
Famous quotes containing the words lead and/or compound:
“I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“We are all aware that speech, like chemistry, has a structure. There is a limited set of elements—vowels and consonants—and these are combined to produce words which, in turn, compound into sentences.”
—Roger Brown (b. 1925)