Amide/Ester Cross-Coupling via C-N/C-H Bond Cleavage: Synthesis of β-Ketoesters.

Activated primary, secondary, and tertiary amides were coupled with enolizable esters in the presence of LiHMDS to obtain good yields of β-ketoesters at room temperature. Notably, this protocol provides an efficient, mild, and high chemoselectivity method to synthesis of β-alkylketoesters using the cross-coupling between aliphatic amides and esters. Meanwhile, gram-scale secondary and primary amides reacted via in situ generated activated tertiary amides and exhibited good reactivity when coupled with esters.