A concise synthesis of 2-(1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-6-methoxynaphthalen-4-yl) ethanamine, a key intermediate in the elaboration compound library of agomelatine analogs

Agomelatine, a melatonin-like antidepressant drug based on a naphthalene scaffold, has received consid erable attention these last twenty years. This drug molecu le undergoes important liver first pass effect and suffers therefore of a short plasma half-life. In an effort to circum vent this drawback, we designed an approch based on the use of a tetraline scaffold to replace the original naphthalene template. Using a concise synthetic method involving a three-step approach and starting a commercially available tetralone precursor,we successfully designed a tetraline scaffold, a pivotal template which could be further elaborated into a compound library of agomelatine analogs. Further work is now under progress along this line