After describing the story of the dolastatins, I thought that also the halichondrins would deserve a post. But I have soon realized that Quintus has already done this very nicely, so that there is no need for me to go into more detail here…

For me it just remains to say that the development of Eribulin from Halichondrin B was a real game changer in the Natural-Product-To-Drug arena.

One of the strongest argument against natural products in drug discovery has always been “It might be a nice hit/lead, but it will never be possible to synthesise such complex compounds economically”. Eribulin simply proves that this is not true. Despite being still rather complex and still having about 20 stereocenters, it is economically feasible to manufacture the compound.

Every decision maker in the natural product sceptic pharmaceutical industry should realise that natural product leads are not that ridiculous after all…