That now high-profile anti-bird-flu drug, oseltamivir phosphate (Tamiflu), isn’t available in enough quantities to fix up most of the world’s population. No way.

So it’s entirely apropos to think about making your own. Totally Synthetic, an organic chemistry blog, reviews the highlights of two Tamiflu total syntheses, published just last week or so. Soak in the retrosynthetic analytical genius of the Corey and Shibasaki groups. Tamiflus is still patented no matter how you make it, but without explosive azide salts and less of similar nasties, Corey’s synthesis seems to have potential for scaling up. (It’s still twelve steps, so it’s not going to be super-fun, but hey.)

P.S. No, I have no idea how pharmaceuticals get their kooky chemical names. It sure ain’t IUPAC-kosher. Then again, Americans are still pretty entrenched in using non-IUPAC names. (Who can tell me within three seconds what dimethyl ketone is?)