Conjugate Additions of Amines to Maleimides via Cooperative Catalysis

Abstract A cooperative system comprising of a lithium Lewis acid and amine base significantly enhances the rate of the conjugate addition of a wide array of amines to maleimides. This operationally simple, scalable method provides mono‐addition products in high yields and purity. This conjugation was successfully applied to the kinase inhibitor crizotinib in a chemoselective ligation to create novel fluorescent probe. magnified image