A Stereoselective Process for the Manufacture of a 2′-Deoxy-β-d-Ribonucleoside Using the Vorbrüggen Glycosylation

A practical and scalable process for the manufacture of cladribine (1) is described. Vorbruggen glycosylation of doubly silylated 2-chloroadenine 2 with protected 1-O-acetyl-2-deoxy-α,β-d-ribofuranose 3 under reversible conditions in the presence of 20 mol % triflic acid in a solvent that selectively precipitated the desired β-anomer β-4a whilst leaving the unwanted α-anomer α-4a in solution to isomerise allowed good overall stereoselectivity with exclusive regioselectivity. An aging step allowed anomerisation of α-4a to β-4a, thereby improving the isolable yield of the β-anomer. Direct filtration of the product mixture without a catalyst quench or aqueous workup furnished the crude β-anomer β-4a in good yield (up to 68%) and purity (>95% by HPLC) with no regioisomers detected and only ∼1–3% (by HPLC) of the undesired α-anomer. Deprotection of the crude, unpurified intermediate β-4a followed by recrystallisation provided drug-grade cladribine (1). The process includes three isolation steps and was demonst...