The indanyl core is ubiquitous in a large variety of drugs and natural products. Importantly, the ever-increasing demand for chiral catalysts bearing this scaffold calls for state of the art methods allowing for a step-economical enantioselective access to this structural motif. We herein summarize the asymmetric syntheses of indanes with a particular focus on asymmetric catalysis, covering the literature of the last decade until July 2015.

An original synthesis of chiral benzofulvenes triggered by organocopper reagents is reported. These enantiopure products are available through a highly chemo-, regio-, diastereo-, and enantioselective bis(alkylating) cycloisomerization process. A double chirality transfer (central-to-axial-to-central) is observed.