Facile and practical synthesis of a cannabinoid-1 antagonist via regio- and stereoselective ring-opening of an aziridinium ion

A scalable synthetic strategy of a chiral, trisubstituted imidazolidinone (1), a novel cannabinoid-1 antagonist, starting from a commercially available mandelic acid (5) is described. The key step involves a regio- and stereoselective ring-opening of an aziridinium ion by an aniline nucleophile (3). A mechanistic study revealed the insight into rate amplification at a lower temperature for vicinal diamine 12 formation via a aziridinium ion 14. Although most intermediates are not isolable by crystallization due to their intrinsic physical properties (oil or foamy solid), the reported synthesis furnished pure 1 without any chromatography purification throughout the entire synthesis. Employing green chemistry principles, this novel synthesis appears to be highly efficient for the manufacturing of multi-kilogram quantities of an optically-pure active pharmaceutical ingredient.

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