No abstract

Copper, an earth-abundant metal, has reemerged as a viable alternative to the versatile Pd-catalyzed C–N coupling. Coupling sterically hindered reaction partners, however, remains challenging. Herein, we disclose the discovery and development of a pyrrole-ol ligand to facilitate the coupling of ortho-substituted aryl iodides with sterically hindered amines. The ligand was discovered through a library screening approach and highlights the value of mining heteroatom-rich pharmaceutical libraries for useful ligand motifs. Further evaluation revealed that this ligand is uniquely effective in these challenging transformations. The reaction enables the coupling of sterically hindered primary and secondary amines, anilines, and amides with broad functional group tolerance.

We report the use of biaryl phosphorinanes as ligands for Pd-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions. A modular synthesis was developed that employs a double conjugate addition of primary biaryl phosphines into 1,1,5,5-tetraalkyl penta-1,4-diene-3-ones. Notably, this synthesis does not require the use of copper, a known contaminant in structurally related biaryl phosphane ligands. Using the synthetic strategy described above, we synthesized a library of biaryl phosphorinanes, varying their substitution about phosphorus and the steric and electronic nature of the biaryl motif. We then benchmarked their performance as ligands in Pd-catalyzed cross coupling reactions such as aryl sulfonamidation, aryl alkoxylation, and aryl amination in the presence of soluble organic bases. In each reaction studied, many ligands outperformed biaryl phosphanes known to promote the given transformation. Detailed substrate scopes were determined using high-throughput screening technology. Several biaryl phosphorinanes and their corresponding Pd­(II) oxidative-addition complexes were extensively characterized using NMR spectroscopy and X-ray crystallography. General observations support that biaryl phosphorinanes promote reductive elimination and form robust catalysts with palladium. In many cases the use of these biaryl phosphorinanes may be advantageous over the use of biaryl phosphanes with respect to lower catalyst loadings, shorter reaction times, and robustness.

Dasabuvir (1) is an HCV polymerase inhibitor which has been developed as a part of a three-component direct-acting antiviral combination therapy. During the course of the development of the synthetic route, two novel coupling reactions were developed. First, the copper-catalyzed coupling of uracil with aryl iodides, employing picolinamide 16 as the ligand, was discovered. Later, the palladium-catalyzed sulfonamidation of aryl nonaflate 33 was developed, promoted by electron-rich palladium complexes, including the novel phosphine ligand, VincePhos (50). This made possible a convergent, highly efficient synthesis of dasabuvir that significantly reduced the mutagenic impurity burden of the process.

A Cu-catalyzed synthesis of amides from alcohols and secondary amines using the oxygen in air as the terminal oxidant has been developed. The methodology is operationally simple requiring no high pressure equipment or handling of pure oxygen. The commercially available, nonprecious metal catalyst, Cu(phen)Cl, in conjunction with di-tert-butyl hydrazine dicarboxylate and an inorganic base provides a variety of benzamides in moderate to excellent yields. The pK of amine conjugate acid and electronics of alcohol were shown to impact the selection of base for optimal reactivity. A mechanism consistent with the observed reactivity trends, KIE, and Hammett study is proposed.