General access to cubanes as benzene bioisosteres

The replacement of benzene rings with sp³-hybridized bioisosteres in drug candidates generally improves pharmacokinetic properties while retaining biological activity^1-5. Rigid, strained frameworks such as bicyclo[1.1.1]pentane and cubane are particularly well suited as the ring strain imparts high bond strength and thus metabolic stability on their C-H bonds. Cubane is the ideal bioisostere as it provides the closest geometric match to benzene^6,7. At present, however, all cubanes in drug design, like almost all benzene bioisosteres, act solely as substitutes for mono- or para-substituted benzene rings^1-7. This is owing to the difficulty of accessing 1,3- and 1,2-disubstituted cubane precursors. The adoption of cubane in drug design has been further hindered by the poor compatibility of cross-coupling reactions with the cubane scaffold, owing to a competing metal-catalysed valence isomerization^8-11. Here we report expedient routes to 1,3- and 1,2-disubstituted cubane building blocks using a convenient cyclobutadiene precursor and a photolytic C-H carboxylation reaction, respectively. Moreover, we leverage the slow oxidative addition and rapid reductive elimination of copper to develop C-N, C-C(sp³), C-C(sp²) and C-CF₃ cross-coupling protocols^12,13. Our research enables facile elaboration of all cubane isomers into drug candidates, thus enabling ideal bioisosteric replacement of ortho-, meta- and para-substituted benzenes.