Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is the most common cause of death from liver disease worldwide. The use of capsid assembly modulators is considered a prominent strategy for the development of novel anti-HBV therapies. We performed a pharmacophore-based virtual screening strategy, and a benzamide scaffold hit, WAI-5, was chosen for further structural optimization. A series of novel HBV capsid assembly modulators (CAMs) were found. Compared with the lead hit, the representative compounds 11g and 11n exhibited a 10-fold increase in anti-HBV activity with 50% effective concentration (EC50) values of 1.74 and 1.90 µM, respectively.
Keywords: capsid assembly modulator; hepatitis B virus; novel benzamide derivative; virtual screening.