“…The yield of 1 a was improved under Barbier‐type conditions to 49%, but unreacted 5 a was also recovered (23%) (Table 1, entry 3), indicating optimization of equivalents was required. The formylation was sensitive to the nature of the formylation reagent; by substituting DMF for EtOCHO the yield of 1 a was significantly reduced to 22% with neither 5 a nor hydro‐debrominated side‐product 8 a isolated (Table 1, entry 4), suggesting a DMF mediated degradation pathway [2a,15] . Increasing the equivalents of n ‐BuLi (1.10 equiv) above EtOCHO (1.05 equiv) decreased the isolated yield of 1 a (38%) and increased the proportion of unreacted 5 a (37%) (Table 1, entry 5), suggesting a need to rigorously control the ratio equivalence between n ‐BuLi and EtOCHO.…”