group an olefinic group an aromatic group an o alkyl group an o olefinic group or an o aromatic group r 7 is an alkyl group an olefinic group or an aromatic group p 1 is a hydroxyl protecting group p 5 is h or an acid labile protecting group at the 7 o position r 8 is h alkyl group olefinic or aromatic group and r 9 is h alkyl group olefinic or aromatic or is as defined in the specification application_number US 79242710 A description of note is the top part of the molecule as illustrated above which may be seen to have a 9 keto structure and 10 u03b2 hydroxy or 10 u03b2 acetyl stereochemistry the present invention provides novel taxane analogs having u03b1 stereochemistry at the c 9 and c 10 oh positions of the molecule generally these compounds have been found to exhibit excellent inhibition of cell growth against mdr sensitive cancer cell lines for example the 9 10 u03b1 u03b1 hydroxy taxane derivatives discussed in table 2 exhibit favorable inhibition of cell growth in several of the tested cell lines table 2 above identifies the compounds tpi 287 tpi 285 and tpi 251 which were found to exhibit excellent inhibition of cell growth against mdr sensitive cancer cell lines the compounds tpi 287 tpi 285 and tpi 251 are discussed in greater detail below and have the following respective structures as will become apparent from the discussion below tpi 287 is a mixture of the compounds identified as formula 31 and formula 33 which are discussed below with respect to fig3 the 2 u2032 r isomer of tpi 285 is illustrated for example with respect to generalized formula a in fig1 wherein r 1 is a tert butoxyl group r 2 is an isobutyl.