Design and Combinatorial Synthesis of a Library of Methylenesulfonamides and Related Compounds as Potential Kinase Inhibitors

An effective parallel solid phase route to methylenesulfonamides and amides bearing a wide variety of substituents is described. The three key reaction steps were reductive amination of a haloheteroaromatic aldehyde onto a benzhydrylamine type polystyrene resin, sulfonamide or amide formation and palladium catalysed transformation of the remaining heteroaromatic halogen. A process of virtual library design and filtering, together with solution and solid phase optimisations, aided the preparation of several novel drug-like product classes in high purities and should allow access to a variety of further useful analogues.