Improved synthesis of the thiophenol precursor N-(4-chloro-3-mercaptophenyl)picolinamide for making the mGluR4 PET ligands

Recently ¹¹C]mG4P012 (previously ¹¹C]KALB012 and presently named as ¹¹C]PXT012253 by Prexton Therapeutics) had been used as a biomarker during the preclinical development of a potential therapeutic drug, PXT0002331 (an mGluR4 PAM), for PD and l-dopa-induced dyskinesia. ¹¹C]mG4P012 was shown to be a promising PET radioligand for mGluR4 in the monkey brain and for further development in human subjects. However, the previously reported multi-step synthesis of the thiophenol precursor suffered from low yields and difficult workup procedures. To support the translational research of ¹¹C]mG4P012 and the other potential applications, we have developed a new route for synthesis of the thiophenol precursor and optimized the reaction conditions. The synthesis of N-(4-chloro-3-mercaptophenyl)picolinamide from 1-chloro-4-nitrobenzene has been greatly improved from 8% to 52% total yield with easy handling and in gram scales.