Applications and Synthesis of the Antiepileptic Drug Oxcarbazepine and Related Structures

Oxcarbazepine (OXC), the active ingredient of Trileptal® (Novartis Pharma), has become the most widely prescribed drug for the treatment of epilepsy and other CNS diseases, due to its improved side-effect profile and relevant anticonvulsant activity compared to the parent drug, carbamazepine (CBZ). Given its importance and well-established therapeutic applications, much effort has been devoted to the improvement of its original synthetic protocol, searching for shorter, milder and more efficient routes, employing not only classical transformations but also modern synthetic tools, such as palladium-catalysed arylation reactions. In this article it is intended to resume the applications and features of OXC as an anticonvulsant drug, as well as to compile for the first time all the reported routes to OXC, from the originally-developed protocol to the latest methodology, which allowed for the synthesis of a family of structural analogues. Such synthetic sequences will be discussed and comprehensively classified according to whether the approach to OXC is based on either modifications on the iminodibenzyl ring or coupling reactions.