Ukrainian chemists persevered

Abstract

On Feb. 24, 2022, Russian forces invaded Ukraine. People watched the news in horror. Many chemists outside the country were particularly concerned for their friends and colleagues working in the Ukrainian chemical industry. They also worried about the impact on drug discovery projects around the world as supplies from Ukraine halted. Over the past 30 years, Ukraine’s chemists have become integral to the drug discovery ecosystem, providing research services and complex molecules in the hunt for new drug leads. When Ukrainian firms like Enamine, Life Chemicals, and OTAVAchemicals stopped operating at the time of the invasion, it created a vacuum. These contract research organizations, or CROs, were founded after the fall of the Soviet Union. Based mostly around Kyiv, they employ many chemists who provide medicinal chemistry services to the rest of the world, synthesizing and supplying large libraries of small molecules that researchers can use in early-stage research. As