Chiral β-Amino Alcohol

Chiral β-amino alcohols 1a and 1b, developed by K. Soai and co-workers, are useful chiral catalysts for enantioselective addition of dialkylzinc compounds to aliphatic,^1a) aromatic^1b) and five-membered heterocyclic^1c) aldehydes. This addition method with 1 affords secondary alcohols 2 with high optical purity.¹⁾ Moreover, 1b as a chiral ligand was applied to the enantioselective ketone alkynylation reaction, which is a key step in synthesis of Efavirenz.²⁾ Efavirenz is HIV reverse transcriptase inhibitor.