Diastereoselectivity is in the Details: Minor Changes Yield Major Improvements to the Synthesis of Bedaquiline

Bedaquiline is a crucial medicine in the global fight against tuberculosis, yet its high price places it out of reach for many patients. Herein, we describe improvements to the key industrial lithiation-addition sequence that enable a higher yielding and therefore more economical synthesis of bedaquiline. Prioritization of mechanistic understanding and multi-lab reproducibility led to optimized reaction conditions that feature an unusual base–salt pairing and afford a doubling of the yield of racemic bedaquiline. We anticipate that implementation of these improvements on manufacturing scale will be facile, thereby substantially increasing the accessibility of this essential medication.