MDMA is increasingly
used in clinical research, but no cGMP process
has yet been reported. We describe here the first fully validated
cGMP synthesis of up to 5 kg (≈30 000 patient doses)
of MDMA in a four-step process beginning with a noncontrolled starting
material. The overall yield was acceptable (41–53%, over four
steps), and the chemical purity of the final product was excellent,
exceeding 99.9% of the peak area by HPLC in each of the four validation
trials. The availability of cGMP-compliant MDMA will facilitate ongoing
clinical trials and provide for future therapeutic use, if encouraging
results lead to FDA approval.
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