CAS reaches 150 millionth substance

On May 8, CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service) registered its 150 millionth unique chemical substance—a 2-pyrimidinamine carbonitrile derivative, one of several promising compounds studied as inhibitors of TBK and IKKε in the treatment of cancer and immunological diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus or lupus nephritis.

CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society, provides scientific information solutions that enable discovery. ACS also publishes C&EN.

The substance was disclosed in a patent reported by the World Intellectual Property Organization. The compound, assigned CAS Registry Number 2306877-20-1, was patented by Merck. The full compound name is 2-[[3,3-Difluoro-1-[(2R)-2-hydroxy-1-oxopropyl]-4-piperidinyl]oxy]-5-[2-[[5-[(2R)-2,4-dimethyl-1-piperazinyl]-6-methoxy-2-pyridinyl]amino]-4-pyrimidinyl]benzonitrile.

Gilles Georges, vice president of CAS content operations, says it’s important to celebrate such milestones. “We don’t want it to be just a number, it has significance in terms of where the research is going. It took us about 40 years to register the first 25 million substances, and we reached that in 2005. We have registered 50 million substances in the last four years. That really speaks to the acceleration of chemistry research globally.”

The CAS Registry, which identifies and aggregates chemical substance information, was established in 1965. It is now the world’s largest curated database of unique chemical substances.