Studies on the dynamic resolution of Crizotinib intermediate

Abstract Crizotinib is an anti-cancer agent approved for treatment of non-small cell lung carcinoma. Retrosynthetic analysis revels 1-(2,6-dichloro-3-fluorophenyl)ethanol as an important intermediate, which can be made available by different biocatalytic approaches. Herein we report our results on the kinetic and dynamic resolution towards the desired chiral intermediate for Crizotinib synthesis. The results obtained show that very good conversions and high selectivity could be obtained for the kinetic resolution (45% conv. and E  > 200) while dynamic kinetic resolution under continuous-flow conditions afforded the desired product in 57% conversion and 98% e.e.