Route to Benzimidazol-2-ones via Decarbonylative Ring Contraction of Quinoxalinediones: Application to the Synthesis of Flibanserin, A Drug for Treating Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder in Women and Marine Natural Product Hunanamycin Analogue

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Route to Benzimidazol-2-ones via Decarbonylative Ring Contraction of Quinoxalinediones: Application to the Synthesis of Flibanserin, A Drug for Treating Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder in Women and Marine Natural Product Hunanamycin Analogue

Rahul D. Shingare^†‡, Akshay S. Kulkarni^†, Revannath L. Sutar^†, and D. Srinivasa Reddy^*†‡ 

INTRODUCTION

Benzimidazol-2-ones 1 are an important class of heterocycles and a privileged scaffold in medicinal chemistry. They consist of cyclic urea fused with the aromatic backbone, which can potentially interact in a biological system by various noncovalent interactions such as hydrogen bonding and π stacking. Benzimidazolone derivatives exhibit a wide range of biological activities, and they are useful in treating various diseases including cancer, type II diabetes, central nervous system disorders, pain management, and infectious disease.1 Selected compounds embedded with a benzimidazol-2-one moiety along with their use are captured in Figure 1. It is worth mentioning that oxatomide drug with a benzimidazol-2-one core was approved for marketing a few years ago.2a Very recently, US Food and Drug Administration approved a new drug called flibanserin for the treatment of hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) in females, which contains benzimidazol-2- one motif.2b

CONCLUSIONS

We have developed a mild and new protocol for the synthesis of benzimidazol-2-ones from quinoxalinediones through decarbonylation. The present methodology can be an addition to the toolbox to prepare benzimidazolones, and it will be useful in medicinal chemistry, particularly, late-stage functionalization of natural products, drug scaffolds, or an intermediate containing quinoxaline-2,3-diones. As direct application of this method, we have successfully developed a new route for the synthesis of recently approved drug flibanserin and a urea analogue of antibiotic natural product hunanamycin A. Later application demonstrates the utility of the present method in late-stage functionalization

Synthesis of 1-(2-(4-(3-(trifluoromethyl)phenyl)piperazin-1-yl)ethyl)-1,3-dihydro-2Hbenzo[d]imidazol-2-one (Flibanserin)

Flibanserin hydrochloride as white solid.

1H NMR (400MHz ,DMSO-d6)  11.06 (s, 1 H), 10.93 (br. s., 1 H), 7.54 – 7.41 (t, J = 7.9 Hz, 1 H), 7.36 – 7.22 (m, 3 H), 7.15 (d, J = 7.6 Hz, 1 H), 7.09 – 7.01 (m, 3 H), 4.30 (t, J = 6.7 Hz, 2 H), 4.01 (d, J = 11.6 Hz, 2 H), 3.75 (d, J = 10.4 Hz, 2 H), 3.54 – 3.43 (d, J = 4.2 Hz 2 H), 3.31 – 3.10 (m, 4 H);

HRMS (ESI): m/z calculated for C20H22ON4F3[M+H]+ 391.1740 found 391.1743;

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