Shelf-stable electrophilic reagents for the direct incorporation of SCF2CF2H and SCF2CF3 motifs

The introduction of fluoroalkylthioether groups has attracted the attention of the drug discovery community given the special physicochemical and pharmacokinetic features they confer to bioactive compounds. Synthetic advances in the field have been capitalized by methods to incorporate SCF3 and SCF2H motifs, however, longer and synthetically more challenging polyfluoroethyl chains are still underdeveloped. Here, two saccharin-based electrophilic reagents have been disclosed for the efficient incorporation of SCF2CF2H and SCF2CF3 motifs. Their reactivity performance has been thoroughly investigated with a variety of nucleophiles such as thiols, alcohols, amines, alkenes, (hetero)aromatics, and organometallic species, including natural products and pharmaceuticals. Finally, multigram-scale preparation and divergent derivatization has been explored from SCF2CF2H derivatives.