Chiral pregabalin synthesis

The first enantioselective synthesis of pregabalin (2) was developed by Yuen and co-workers at Pfizer using Evans chiral oxazolidinone chemistry (Yuen et al., 1994). 

Many of the synthetic routes derived for pregabalin (2) before 2003 have relied on classical chiral resolution of either an intermediate or the final racemic 3-isobutyl GABA (43). In 2003, Jacobsen and co-workers published their work on a novel enantio-selective synthesis of pregabalin (2) (Sammis and Jacobsen, 2003). The Harvard group was able to promote conjugate addition of hydrogen cyanide into the unsaturated imide... 

Kissel, Ramsden, and other researchers at Pfizer and Chirotech jointly published a novel chiral synthesis of pregabalin (2) in 2003 based on asymmetric hydrogenation (Burk et al., 2001, 2003). Their synthesis started with the condensation of isobutyralde-hyde with acrylonitrile under Baylis-Hillman conditions to give allylic alcohol 65. This alcohol was activated as the carbonate 66 and subjected to palladium-catalyzed car-bonylation conditions to give cyanoester 67. The ester 67 was hydrolyzed and converted to... 

Scheme 8.1 Initial synthesis of pregabalin in its chiral form.

Selective reductien toward chiral a-bromoe ters 58 for type 2 diabetes API 60 functionalization using OYEs (top) [94] synthesis of various (/Q-Profen derivatives 63 using YqjM (centei) [107] application of 11 EREDs in the preparation of ( -Pregabalin 66 and other 7-aminobutyric add (bottom) analogs [108]. 

---