The first Anglo-Swedish Medicinal Chemistry Symposium was held in Are Fjallby, Sweden. It was well attended, with the majority of participants being medicinal chemists from the pharmaceutical industry. The meeting covered a wide range of topics and concentrated on the discovery, optimization and pharmacological profile of novel drugs for the treatment of a variety of diseases, including stroke, type 2 diabetes and cancer. In many of the presentations, emphasis was placed on the need for improvement in the physicokinetic profiles of potential drugs, in order that they reach late-stage clinical trials. This report covers the development of various kinases including glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK-3), cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK2), IkappaB and protease inhibitors, and antagonists for N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors.