Catalytic Scalable Synthesis of Polyketides Enabled by Chiral Brønsted Acid-Catalyzed Asymmetric Allylborations.

The scalable synthesis of target molecules is essential for advancing applications, such as evaluating biological activity in pharmaceutical candidates and developing functional materials. In the context of medicinal chemistry, both industrial and academic researchers have achieved the scalable synthesis of diverse natural products and their derivatives, vastly boosting the development of pharmaceuticals. Most established scalable syntheses have conventionally relied on chiral pool approaches or stoichiometric asymmetric methodologies, and the use of catalytic asymmetric strategies has remained limited. In this personal account, we outline recent progress in the development and refinement of asymmetric allylboration reactions catalyzed by chiral Brønsted acids, providing important chiral building blocks that were previously difficult to access. We also describe the catalytic scalable synthesis of potent natural products enabled by the efficient preparation of chiral building blocks utilizing our allylboration reactions.