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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