Physicochemical Properties of Natural Based Products versus Synthetic Chemicals

The majority of the currently used cosmetics and drugs are natural products-based compounds or their derivatives. This could add weight to the argument that natural based products are inherently better tolerated in the body than synthetic chemicals and have higher chance to be approved as new drugs. The present study was undertaken to analyze a natural product database compared to synthetic chemicals and to search for discriminative physicochemical properties that may probably help in differentiating between natural and synthetic compounds. We have formulated rules to assess the natural likeness of chemicals and thereby discriminate between natural-based and synthetic chemicals. A Mathews Correlation Coefficient of 0.5 was obtained; nearly 81% of natural-based products and 68% of synthetic chemicals were precisely classified using this filter. The property criteria for drug-likeness and lead-likeness are more pronounced in natural products rather than synthetic ones. The fraction of synthetic chemicals which are natural-like could have higher chance to be successful drug.