text: Alogliptin (Figure 9) is a novel DPP-4 inhibitor developed by the Takeda Pharmaceutical Company. Researchers hypothesized that a quinazolinone based structure (Figure 9) would have the necessary groups to interact with the active site on the DPP-4 complex. Quinazolinone based compounds interacted effectively with the DPP-4 complex, but suffered from low metabolic half-life. It was found that when replacing the quinazolinone with a pyrimidinedione, the metabolic stability was increased and the result was a potent, selective, bioavailable DPP-4 inhibitor named alogliptin. The quinazoline based compounds showed potent inhibition and excellent selectivity over related protease, DPP-8. However, short metabolic half-life due to oxidation of the A-ring phenyl group was problematic. At first, the researchers tried to make a fluorinated derivative. The derivative showed improved metabolic stability and excellent inhibition of the DPP-4 enzyme. However, it was also found to inhibit CYP 450 3A4 and block the hERG channel. The solution to this problem was to replace the quinazolinone with other heterocycles, but the quinazolinone could be replaced without any loss of DPP-4 inhibition. Alogliptin was discovered when quinazolinone was replaced with a pyrimidinedione. Alogliptin has shown excellent inhibition of DPP-4 and extraordinary selectivity, greater than 10.000 fold over the closely related serine proteases DPP-8 and DPP-9. Also, it does not inhibit the CYP 450 enzymes nor block the hERG channel at concentration up to 30 µM. Based on this data, alogliptin was chosen for preclinical evaluation. In January 2007 alogliptin was undergoing the phase III clinical trial and in October 2008 it was being reviewed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.