The 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of N-arylsydnones with ethynyl MIDA boronate produces mixtures of the corresponding regioisomeric pyrazolyl 3(4)-boronates, with the pyrazolyl 3-boronates predominating by a factor of 7:3. Further C-4 iodination of the latter opened access to 4-iodopyrazolyl MIDA 3-boronates as valuable scaffolds for the elaboration of unsymmetrically 1,3,4-trisubstituted pyrazole derivatives via Suzuki cross-coupling reactions.Pyrazole derivatives have found numerous applications as pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals.1 As a part of our ongoing research program devoted to the synthesis of diverse poly-(hetero)aromatic pyrazoles for biological screening, we needed an efficient and modular synthetic strategy to assemble a series of 3,4-bis(hetero)aromatic derivatives.2 To this end, flexible protocols allowing the sequential introduction of (hetero)aryl substituents on the prefunctionalized pyrazole nucleus via transition-metal-catalyzed site-selective CC bond forming processes were highly desirable.3 Notably, the Suzuki-type reactions were particularly attractive as they are largely unaffected by the presence of water and are tolerant to a wide range of functional groups. They also take advantage of the commercial availability of numerous boronic acids. 4 However, one major drawback of this strategy is the poor synthetic accessibility of 3,4-dihalogenated pyrazoles. Indeed, while C-4 halogenation of the pyrazole nucleus is relatively easy, 5 selective halogenation at the C-3 carbon atom adjacent to nitrogen remains a rather difficult task. 3,6 In addition, issues of crosscoupling site-selectivity would also need to be addressed.Within this context, we became interested in the potential synthetic utility of 4-halopyrazole-3-boronates as alternative scaffolds. Our approach is inspired by Harrity's pioneering work 2a,7 on the synthesis of pyrazolyl pinacol boronates via sydnone 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions with alkynylboronates. Interestingly, it was reported that terminal alkynylboronate cycloaddition provided the corresponding pyrazole-3-boronates with good levels of regiocontrol, whereas substituted alkynes afforded almost exclusively 4-boronates. Based on these results, we envisaged a rapid access to 4-halopyrazole-3-boronates via sydnone cycloaddition with a terminal alkynyl boronate ester followed by C-4 halogenation. Besides, in order to avoid self coupling reactions, it was decided to make use of masked boronic acids 8 that would allow us to first cross-couple at C-4 and then release the boronic acid to finally cross-couple at C-3. The commercially available ethynyl N-methyliminodiacetic acid (MIDA) boronate (1) developped by Burke 9 was the perfect candidate to gauge the present strategy (Scheme 1). We report herein our preliminary results toward this goal.Our studies began with an initial investigation of the efficiency of sydnone cycloadditions with ethynyl MIDA boronate (1). A series of N-arylsydnones 2 were thus prepared and reacted with equimolar amounts of 1 at 165°C in anisole ( Table 1). As...