Synthesis of ?-Aryl Secondary Amides via Nickel-Catalyzed Reductive Coupling of Redox-Active Esters

The transition-metal-catalyzed alpha-arylation of secon-dary amides remains a synthetic challenge due to the presence of afree N-H bond. We report a strategy to synthesize secondary alpha-aryl amides via a Ni-catalyzed reductive arylation of redox-activeN-hydroxyphthalimide (NHP) esters of malonic acid half amides.This transformation proceeds under mild conditions and displaysexcellent chemoselectivity for amide alpha-arylation in the presence ofother enolizable carbonyls. The NHP ester substrates are readily prepared from Meldrum's acid