Development of a Scalable Anodic Oxidation Process for (R)-Troloxamide Quinone (EPI-589) Using a Continuous Flow Approach

Electrochemical methods in organic synthesis hold significant potential for next-generation chemical processes and are gaining attention not only in the pharmaceutical sector but also across the broader chemical industry. From an electrochemical perspective, electrons can be regarded as a reagent, which can be utilized in various oxidation and reduction reactions. Anodic oxidation is one example, by which it is possible to oxidatively cleave troloxamide to form troloxamide quinone. Thus, an electrochemical process can contribute to the synthesis of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) EPI-589, a drug candidate for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Process development using electrochemical methods is often regarded as challenging for scale-up and manufacturing, but here we describe the establishment of a manufacturing method by combining the concepts of anodic oxidation (electroorganic chemistry) and continuous processing are described. The results of a scale-up proof-of-concept experiment are shown, in which the API was obtained with excellent quality on a kilogram scale.