Facile synthesis of novel heterocyclic compounds based on pyridine moiety with pharmaceutical activities

A novel run of fused heterocyclic derivatives containing pyridine moieties has been disclosed by allowing 2‐amino‐4‐phenyl‐6‐(phenyl amino)pyridine‐3,5‐dicarbonitrile 1 to undergo annulation reactions with different reagents. Most of synthesized compounds have moderate to strong antitumor activity against HePG‐2 and MCF‐7. Moreover, MOE 2014.09 software was used to run the computational studies to support the biological activity results. The assigned structures for all the newly prepared derivatives were ascertained on the basis of elemental analyses and spectral data.