Divergent strategy for the synthesis of [alpha]-aryl-substituted fosmidomycin analogues

A divergent strategy employed for the synthesis of [alpha]-aryl-substituted fosmidomycin analogues, which are often used as the antimalarial drugs are described. The methodology is found to exhibit a palladium-catalyzed Stille coupling as the key step, as the antimalarial activity of the analogues are clearly found to surpass that of the reference compound fosmidomycin.