The present invention relates to highly enantiomerically pure lactam-substituted
propanoic acid derivatives and methods of making and using therefor. The invention
involves a multi-step synthesis to produce the lactam compounds. In one step of
the reaction sequence, asymmetric hydrogenation of a lactam-enamide was performed
to produce an intermediate that can ultimately be converted to a series of pharmaceutical
compounds. The invention also contemplates the in situ synthesis of an intermediate
of the multi-step synthesis, which provides economic advantages to the overall
synthesis of the lactam compounds.
