Recent patents on proteases and kinases as anti-infective agents: a review.

Infectious diseases have haunted human populations for millennia. Still we are struggling with this scourge because of multiple complexities. These include the emergence of new pathogenic species due to mutations owing to the naturally ticking evolutionary clock. In addition, under the selective pressure of existing powerful antibiotics, which have been helpful in effectively managing many infectious diseases for a long time, resistant species arise quite commonly. Therefore, there is always an urgent need to invent new strategies to fight new strains of these pathogens. We review here some important patents that have been licensed for drug development pertaining to protease and kinase inhibitors. Instead of being comprehensive, we have been selective in our choices. We apologize to those whose patents we could not cite. Our goal is to inform public at large of the new inventions in the pipeline and their status toward development of these technologies as drugs in the clinic.