Anthelmintic resistance in human and animal pathogenic helminths has been spreading in prevalence and severity to a point where multidrug resistance against the three major classes of anthelmintics--the benzimidazoles, imidazothiazoles and macrocyclic lactones--has become a global phenomenon in gastrointestinal nematodes of farm animals. Hence, there is an urgent need for an anthelmintic with a new mode of action. Here we report the discovery of the amino-acetonitrile derivatives (AADs) as a new chemical class of synthetic anthelmintics and describe the development of drug candidates that are efficacious against various species of livestock-pathogenic nematodes. These drug candidates seem to have a novel mode of action involving a unique, nematode-specific clade of acetylcholine receptor subunits. The AADs are well tolerated and of low toxicity to mammals, and overcome existing resistances to the currently available anthelmintics.

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The asymmetric synthesis of a series of 2-(1-aminoalkyl) piperidines using (-)-2-cyano-6-phenyloxazolopiperidine 1 is described. LiAlH(4) reduction of 1 followed by hydrogenolysis led to the diamine 3. The same strategy applied to C-2-methylated compound 7 afforded [(2S)-2-methylpiperidin-2-yl]methanamine (9). Addition of lithium derivatives to the cyano group of 1 resulted in the formation of an intermediate imino bicyclic system (11a-c) which could be diastereoselectively reduced to substituted diamino alcohols 13a-c. The addition of an excess of PhLi to 1 in the presence of LiBr furnished disubstituted amine 19, the precursor of diphenyl[(2S)-piperidin-2-yl]methanamine (22).

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