ACS Spring 2026 clinical candidate disclosures: Pharmaceutical uses and patent literature preparation routes

The American Chemical Society (ACS) spring 2026 first-time disclosures session unveiled six novel clinical-stage small molecules, highlighting key medicinal chemistry strategies across targeted oncology, epigenetics, targeted protein degradation, and non-opioid pain management. This review synthesizes the discovery, chemical design, and therapeutic rationale of six candidates. In oncology, GDC-4198 (CDK4) and OP-3136 (KAT6) target hormone-receptor-positive breast cancers, IAM1363 delivers an AI-designed, CNS-penetrant covalent HER2 inhibitor, and FORX-428 (PARG) exploits synthetic lethality in DNA repair. Rounding out the cohort, BMS-986482 expands molecular glue degraders to solid tumors as a pan-IKZF1–4, while BHV-2100 establishes a non-opioid approach to pain and migraine as a TRPM3 antagonist. The synthetic schemes of these candidates obtained from their inventors’ patents will be presented.