This course provides an overview of the structures of the different pharmaceutical agents that are used for the treatment of human disease. Within each therapeutic area, representative drugs currently on the market or in advanced clinical trials are discussed with a focus on their method of synthesis. A combination of reactions learned in previous courses and new reactions will be used to understand the strategy and the synthetic routes that are presented. Successful students will be able to: have a basic understanding of the drug discovery process and pharmaceutical industry; recall and describe metal catalyzed reactions taught in the course; predict the outcome of organic reaction sequences; discuss the different aspects of drug discovery including how pharmaceutical companies are organized to take on the task of finding, then preparing, drug candidates; propose reaction mechanisms and create synthetic routes to molecules of moderate complexity using reactions taught in the course and those taught in previous organic chemistry courses. An oral examination is a key part of the course. Preparing for and participating in the examination will teach important skills, useful well outside the chemistry domain.