Natural Product Database

Natural products are compounds inherently present in animals, plants, and microorganisms, playing a pivotal role in drug discovery. Since the 1940s, nearly 75% of newly discovered small-molecule anticancer drugs have been derived from or inspired by natural products. Notable examples include Paclitaxel, an anticancer agent extracted from the Pacific yew tree, and Aspirin, a derivative of salicylic acid found in willow leaves. Through millions of years of evolution, natural products have developed superior biological activities and ecological fitness.

In pharmaceutical R&D, the exploration and screening of natural products remain a critical driving force due to their vast structural novelty and untapped chemical motifs. However, compared to combinatorial chemistry, acquiring natural products and their analogs presents significant challenges, including difficult isolation and extraction processes, limited yields, and highly complex synthetic routes. Consequently, the commercial availability of natural products and their analogs is substantially lower than that of conventional lead-like compounds. Furthermore, the high cost of rare natural products often limits the scope and capacity of natural product-based drug screening.