Design, Synthesis and Anticancer Screening of Cu-Catalyzed SnAr Substituted Pyridine Bridged Ring Systems

•A series of new pyridine bridged ring systems were designed and synthesised.•CC (1-8) exhibits well-deserved in silico pharmacokinetic property.•CC (1-8) exhibits greater interaction and affinity against VEGFR-2 protein via molecular docking.•In-vitro cell viability evaluation on human pancreatic cancer cell line MIA PaCa-2.•CC (1-8) molecules can be considered as potential hits for further anticancer evaluation. Cancer is a dreaded disease that has a devastating impact on mankind. Among them, pancreatic cancer is renowned for its spread and low survival rate. Since the pyridine ring is abundant in the core of many cancer drugs, new molecules have been designed and synthesised with the pyridine moiety as the core. As a primary initiation step, the in silico ADMET screening and molecular docking was performed on VEGFR-2 (PDB: 4AG8). The ligands revealed their drugable nature and were found to be in compliance with ADMET parameters. The binding interaction ranges from -9.9 to -9.0 kcal/mol. Synthesis was performed via Cu-catalyzed and characterised by spectroscopic methods. The in vitro cell viability of CC1 and CC6 on MIA PaCa-2 exhibits IC50 values of 36.03±3.0 and 38.76±3.3 µM, respectively. The findings recommend that molecules could be good candidates for further anticancer research. [Display omitted]