Development of a multistep reaction cascade for the synthesis of a sacubitril precursor in continuous flow

The active pharmaceutical ingredient sacubitril acts as a neprilysin inhibitor in the body and is administered to patients suffering from high blood pressure and chronic heart failure. In this paper, we report the development of a three-step setup for the synthesis of an advanced sacubitril precursor in continuous flow. The key transformation of our cascade is a Suzuki-Miyaura coupling facilitated by a heterogeneous palladium catalyst. Its implementation in a packed-bed reactor and the application of continuous flow methodologies allow intensification of the cross-coupling reaction compared to batch processing. The subsequent steps for the synthesis of the target molecule involve Boc-deprotection as well as N-succinylation, which have been optimized using the statistical “Design of Experiments” (DoE) approach. In this way, the individual as well as interactive effects of selected parameters on the output of the reactions could be investigated very efficiently. The consecutive performance of the three reaction steps using an integrated setup enabled the synthesis of a late-stage sacubitril precursor in continuous flow with 81% overall yield.