Novel 7-formyl-naphthyridyl-ureas derivatives as potential selective FGFR4 inhibitors: Design, synthesis, and biological activity studies

Total twenty-five 7-formyl-naphthyridyl-urea derivatives were designed, synthesized and evaluated for their inhibition of FGFR4 kinase and antitumor activity. The pharmacological data indicated that most of the tested compounds showed high selectivity towards FGFR4 kinase and could significantly inhibit FGFR4 and the tumor cells lines with the high expression of FGFR4. In particular, compounds 6f, 6g, 6h, 6l, 6m and 6s showed a good performance in pharmacokinetic tests. When tested in mice, the representative compound 6f was found to have good pharmacokinetic parameters, low toxicity, and better tumor inhibiting activity in vivo.