Efficient synthesis of diversely substituted pyrimidines by palladium catalyzed Suzuki-Miyaura coupling

An efficient synthesis of 2-aryl/heteroaryl substituted pyrimidinyl ethanones 4(a-t) was developed using a palladium-catalyzed Suzuki-Miyaura coupling reaction strategy. Use of Pd(OAc)2 in the presence of PPh3 and Na2CO3 in 1,4-dioxane solvent was found to be the most effective reaction condition.