Latest Research Trends in Agrochemical Fungicides: Any Learnings for Pharmaceutical Antifungals?

For a long time, fungal pathogens have been a threat to the health and diet of humans. Consequently, antimycotic agents have been developed, which are called fungicides in agriculture and antifungals in medicine. Because fungi constantly develop resistance to established modes of action and because of the need for reducing the required use rates/doses, immense research efforts are still being undertaken to discover novel antimycotics. The research-based agrochemical industry has proven that these requirements can be fulfilled by a constant flow of novel fungicidal modes of action, the expansion of agronomical scope and applicability of existing fungicidal mode of action classes, and the design of resistance-breaking active ingredients in an established fungicidal mode of action class, if the molecular structure of the mutated fungal strain is known. Such strategies could be also useful for the discovery of novel antifungals.