A new approach towards the synthesis of drospirenone and steroidal spirolactones

• A new methodology for the synthesis of steroidal 17-spirolactones is described.
• The method use lithium acetylide of ethyl propiolate as the three carbon nucleophile for building the spirolactone.
• This method was applied for the large scale synthesis of drospirenone.
• Other steroidal spirolactones were also synthesized via this method.

A general methodology for the synthesis of different steroidal 17-spirolactones is described. This method uses lithium acetylide of ethyl propiolate as the three carbon synthon and the method was successfully applied for the process development of drospirenone.

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