Patent ID: 7186827

Claim:
A process of preparing a compound of the formula (I): wherein: Het is a monocyclic ring which is heterocyclic and contains at least the one nitrogen atom which is covalently attached to the carbonyl group; Ring a is: piperidinyl, hexahydropyrimidinyl, hexahydropyridazinyl, piperazinyl, 1,2-thiazinanyl-1,1-dioxide, 1,2,6-thiadiazinanyl-1,1-dioxide, morpholinyl, or thiomorpholinyl; each of ring a or Het is optionally substituted with one or more R 4 which is chosen from hydrogen and branched or straight chain alkyl, each carbon atom in the alkyl chain is optionally replaced with one to three heteroatoms chosen from O, S, and N—R 5 wherein R 5 is hydrogen or alkyl; and wherein R 5 is optionally further substituted by one or more alkoxy, amine, halogen, carbocycle, heteroaryl or heterocycle; R 1 and R 2 are each independently alkyl, alkoxy, carbocycle, carbocycleS(O) m —, alkylS(O) m — wherein m is 0, 1 or 2; R 3 is cyano or amino; said process comprising: a) reacting an allyl alcohol of the formula (II) with a vinyl ether of the formula (III) in the presence of a palladium catalyst and a ligand chosen from 1, 10-phenathroline, 4, 7-diphenyl-1, 10-phenathroline and 2,2′-dipyridyl at a temperature range of 20° C to 120° C., continuing the reaction for about 7 h at about 100–200° C.; where n in formula (III) is 2, 3, 4 or 5; b) in a one pot reaction, reducing an intermediate (V) and reacting (V) with a nitrogen containing heterocycle (VI) where one of the nitrogen atoms bears a reactive acyl group: —CO—X wherein X is a halogen atom, and subsequently further reacting with the product (IV) above, to yield as product intermediate (VII); subsequently reducing (VII) by asymmetric catalytic hydrogenation to provide ester (VIII); hydrolyzing intermediate (VIII) to produce the acid (IX): c) reacting the intermediate (IX) produced above with an amine intermediate bearing ring a under coupling conditions to produce (I): and subsequently isolating the product (I).