Nocaine

Nocaine is a stimulant drug similar in structure to cocaine and troparil, but lacking the two-carbon bridge of the tropane skeleton.

The Nocaine family includes a diverse assortment of piperidine based cocaine mimics. The parent compound Nocaine was developed in an attempt to develop a substitute drug for cocaine for the treatment of addiction; this is a significant field of research with much work ongoing, and dozens of novel compounds have been developed although none have yet come to market.

Nocaine itself is also known as (+)-CPCA or 3α-carbomethoxy-4β-(4-chlorophenyl)-N-methylpiperidine, and was developed in the early 2000s, but since this time a large number of substituted phenylpiperidine derivatives have been discovered, hybridizing the basic nocaine structure with that of other similar molecules such as methylphenidate, meperidine and modafinil to create a large family of derivatives with a range of activity profiles and potential applications.

For a more detailed discussion of nocaine pharmacology, see Nocaine pharmacology