The 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, held in Boston, included topics covering new therapeutic research. This conference report highlights selected presentations on negative allosteric modulators of metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 (mGluR5) for the treatment of Parkinson's disease, BACE1 inhibitors and γ-secretase inhibitors for the prevention or treatment of Alzheimer's disease, opioid modulators for the treatment of reward disorders, SGLT2 inhibitors for the treatment of diabetes, backup compounds to the DPP-4 inhibitor sitagliptin (Januvia) for type 2 diabetes, and MCH R1 inhibitors for the treatment of obesity. Investigational drugs discussed include SCH-1359113 and SCH-1682496 (both Merck & Co), NGP-555 (NeuroGenetic Pharmaceuticals), ALKS-33 (Alkermes), dapagliflozin (Bristol-Myers Squibb/AstraZeneca) and GSK-882380 (GlaxoSmithKline).