Abstract
The immunomodulatory drugs (IMiDs) thalidomide, pomalidomide, and lenalidomide are widely used to treat multiple myeloma. The permanent need of IMiDs analogues in clinical screening and practice has created the demand to find a reliable and robust method for their preparation. To reach this goal, the use of flow chemistry is quite appealing, allowing a safe operation, an excellent reproducibility and an efficient process. Herein, we describe a continuous 3–4 step flow approach for the synthesis of the pomalidomide (38–47% overall yield) and a few analogues.
Graphical abstract
References
Lenz W (1988) A short history of thalidomide Embryopathy. Teratology 38:203–215
Eriksson T, Björkman S, Höglund P (2001) Clinical pharmacology of thalidomide. Eur J Clin Pharmacol 57:365–376
Mcbride WG (1961) Thalidomide and congenital abnormalities. The Lancet 278:1358
Speirs AL (1962) Thalidomide and congenital abnormalities. The Lancet 279:303–305
Wnendt S, Finkam M, Winter W, Ossig J, Raabe G, Zwingenberger K (1996) Enantioselective inhibition of TNF-α release by thalidomide and thalidomide-analogues. Chirality 8:390–396
Eriksson T, Bjöurkman S, Roth B, Fyge Å, Höuglund P (1995) Stereospecific determination, chiral inversion in vitro and pharmacokinetics in humans of the enantiomers of thalidomide. Chirality 7:44–52
Muller GW, Chen R, Huang S-Y, Corral LG, Wong LM, Patterson RT, Chen Y, Kaplan G, Stirling DI (1999) Amino-substituted thalidomide analogs: potent inhibitors of TNF-α production. Bioorg Med Chem Lett 9:1625–1630
Wiles C, Watts P (2012) Continuous flow reactors: a perspective. Green Chem 14:38–54
Malet-Sanz L, Susanne F (2012) Continuous flow synthesis. A pharma perspective. J Med Chem 55:4062–4098. https://doi.org/10.1021/jm2006029
De Angelis S, Celestini P, Purgatorio R, Degennaro L, Rebuzzini G, Luisi R, Carlucci C (2019) Development of a continuous flow synthesis of propranolol: tackling a competitive side reaction. J Flow Chem 9(4):231–236. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41981-019-00047-8
Bloemendal VRLJ, Janssen MACH, van Hest JCM, Rutjes FPJT (2020) Continuous one-flow multi-step synthesis of active pharmaceutical ingredients. React Chem Eng. https://doi.org/10.1039/D0RE00087F
Baumann M, Moody TS, Smyth M, Wharry S (2020) A perspective on continuous flow chemistry in the pharmaceutical industry. Org Process Res Dev. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.oprd.9b00524
Mougeot R, Jubault P, Legros J, Poisson T (2021) Continuous flow synthesis of propofol. Molecules 26(23):7183. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules26237183
Ivanova M, Legros J, Poisson T, Jubault P (2021) Continuous flow synthesis of celecoxib from 2-Bromo-3,3,3-Trifluoropropene. J Flow Chem. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41981-021-00205-x
Heim C, Pliatsika D, Mousavizadeh F, Bär K, Hernandez Alvarez B, Giannis A, Hartmann MD (2019) De-novo design of cereblon (CRBN) effectors guided by natural hydrolysis products of thalidomide derivatives. J Med Chem:6615–6629
Burslem GM, Ottis P, Jaime-Figueroa S, Morgan A, Cromm PM, Toure M, Crews CM (2018) Efficient synthesis of immunomodulatory drug analogues enables exploration of structure–degradation relationships. ChemMedChem 13:1508–1512
Fox DJ, Reckless J, Warren SG, Grainger DJ (2002) Design, synthesis, and preliminary pharmacological evaluation of N-Acyl-3-Aminoglutarimides as broad-Spectrum chemokine inhibitors in vitro and anti-inflammatory agents in vivo. J Med Chem 45:360–370
Fujimoto H, Noguchi T, Kobayashi H, Miyachi H, Hashimoto Y (2006) Effects of immunomodulatory derivatives of thalidomide (IMiDs) and their analogs on cell-differentiation, cyclooxygenase activity and angiogenesis. Chem Pharm Bull (Tokyo) 54:855–860
Niwayama S, Turk BE, Liu JO (1996) Potent inhibition of tumor necrosis factor-α production by Tetrafluorothalidomide and Tetrafluorophthalimides. J Med Chem 39:3044–3045
Acknowledgements
This work is part of the API program supported by the European Union through the operational program FEDER/FSE 2014–2020 (no. 20E04976) and FNADT-DRACCARE program 2020–2023 ((N)15179). This work has been partially supported by University of Rouen Normandy, INSA Rouen Normandy, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), European Development Fund (ERDF), Labex SynOrg (ANR-11-LABX-0029), Carnot Institute I2C, the graduate school for research XL-Chem (ANR-18-EURE-0020 XL CHEM), and by Région Normandie. T.P. thanks the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF) for support.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary Information
ESM 1
(DOCX 235 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ivanova, M., Legros, J., Poisson, T. et al. A multi-step continuous flow synthesis of pomalidomide. J Flow Chem 12, 383–387 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41981-022-00223-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41981-022-00223-3