Investigation of orexin-2 selective receptor antagonists: Structural modifications resulting in dual orexin receptor antagonists.

In an ongoing effort to explore the use of orexin receptor antagonists for the treatment of insomnia, dual orexin receptor antagonists (DORAs) were structurally modified, resulting in compounds selective for the OX2 R subtype and culminating in the discovery of 23, a highly potent, OX2 R-selective molecule that exhibited a promising in vivo profile. Further structural modification led to an unexpected restoration of OX1 R antagonism. Herein, these changes are discussed and a rationale for selectivity based on computational modeling is proposed.