Open Science Discovery of Potent Non-Covalent SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease Inhibitors

Abstract

We report the results of the COVID Moonshot, a fully open-science, crowd sourced, structure-enabled drug discovery campaign targeting the SARS-CoV-2 main protease. We discovered a non-covalent, non-peptidic inhibitor scaffold with lead-like properties that is differentiated from current main protease inhibitors. Our approach leveraged crowdsourcing, machine learning, exascale molecular simulations, and high-throughput structural biology and chemistry. We generated a detailed map of the structural plasticity of the SARS-CoV-2 main protease, extensive structure-activity relationships for multiple chemotypes, and a wealth of biochemical activity data. All compound designs (>18,000 designs), crystallographic data (>840 ligand-bound X-ray structures), assay data (>10,000 measurements), and synthesized molecules (>2,400 compounds) for this campaign were shared rapidly and openly, creating a rich open and IP-free knowledgebase for future anti-coronavirus drug discovery.