mk-2048 mk-2048 mk-2048 is the merck & co. designation for a molecule in its pre-clinical drug discovery that is an integrase inhibitor-class of agent intended to be used against hiv infection. it is a second generation integrase design thought to be superior to the first available integrase inhibitor, raltegravir, in that "mk-2048 has a dissociation half-life of 32 hours on wild-type integrase—more than four times that of raltegravir", and its dissociation half-life against the important hiv integrase mutant n155h was on the same order of magnitude as that of raltegravir against wild-type virus, leading the merck presenter to suggest the possibility of "reduced susceptibility to resistance mutations" for the second generation drug. mk-2048 is being investigated for use as part of a pre-exposure prophylaxis (prep) approach to the treatment of hiv infection. at the time of these reports, there was no indication of the time by which "mk-2048, or related compounds, be ready for clinical trials". mk-2048mk-2048clinical dataatc codenonelegal statuslegal status us: investigational new drug identifiers iupac name (6s)-2--8-ethyl-9-hydroxy-n,6-dimethyl-1,10-dioxo-6,7-dihydropyrazinopyrrolopyridazine-4-carboxamide cas number869901-69-9 ypubchem cid11554427chemspider25058456uniilj8u884tm5chemblchembl1237018comptox dashboard (epa)dtxsid70236031 echa infocard100.233.568 chemical and physical dataformulac21h21clfn5o4molar mass461.88 g·mol−13d model (jsmol)interactive image smiles ccn1cc(n2c3=c(c(=o)c2=c1o)c(=o)n(n=c3c(=o)nc)cc4=cc(=c(c=c4)f)cl)c inchi inchi=1s/c21h21clfn5o4/c1-4-26-8-10(2)28-16-14(18(29)17(28)21(26)32)20(31)27(25-15(16)19(30)24-3)9-11-5-6-13(23)12(22)7-11/h5-7,10,32h,4,8-9h2,1-3h3,(h,24,30)/t10-/m0/s1key:ioylknaboqykky-jtqlqieisa-n