Scalable enantioselective processes for chiral pharmaceutical intermediates

The importance and practicality of asymmetric synthesis to obtain enantiomerically pure drug substances has been fully recognized by process chemists of the pharmaceutical industry. Catalytic enantioselective processes would be particularly advantageous, compared to processes requiring stoichiometric amounts of chiral initiators, and would also be of interest from an environmental perspective. Since the commercialization of the Monsanto process for the manufacturing of L-DOPA in the early 1970s, catalytic asymmetric reactions have often been utilized in the commercial production of active pharmaceutical ingredients. This review will focus on recent advances in the development of scalable enantioselective processes for chiral pharmaceutical intermediates.