Natural products as a source of agrochemicals and leads for chemical synthesis

Abstract

Abstract The use of natural products as a source of new agrochemicals and the procedures that can be undertaken to discover such compounds are reviewed using examples from both the literature and our own experiences. The commercial successes obtained to date show that natural products are a powerful source of new agrochemicals. The results from a survey of the views of the agrochemical industry of natural product work indicated a high level of interest, with 16 of the 19 companies that replied being involved in natural product work either through in‐house or external programmes of work. Possible approaches to the key challenges of atural product work, for example choice of sources and screens, avoiding known metabolites and obtaining sufficient compound for biological evaluation, are discussed.