Since the discovery of penicillin in the 1920s and streptomycin in the 1940s, many new compounds have been discovered or specifically designed for use as antibiotic agents. It was once believed that infectious diseases could be completely controlled or eradicated with the use of such therapeutic agents. However, such beliefs have been shaken by the fact that strains of cells or microorganisms resistant to currently effective therapeutic agents continue to evolve. In fact, virtually every antibiotic agent developed for clinical use has ultimately encountered problems with the emergence of resistant bacteria. For example, resistant strains of Gram-positive bacteria such as methicillin-resistant staphylocci, penicillin-resistant streptococci, and vancomycin-resistant enterococci have developed, which can cause serious and even fatal results for patients infected with such resistant bacteria. Bacteria that are resistant to macrolide antibiotics, i.e., antibiotics based on a 14- to 16-membered lactone ring, have developed. Also, resistant strains of Gram-negative bacteria such as H. influenzae and M. catarrhalis have been identified. See, e.g., F. D. Lowry, “Antimicrobial Resistance: The Example of Staphylococcus aureus,” J. Clin. Invest, vol. 111, no. 9, pp. 1265-1273 (2003); and Gold, H. S. and Moellering, R. C., Jr., “Antimicrobial-Drug Resistance,” N. Engl. J. Med., vol. 335, pp. 1445-53 (1996).
The problem of resistance is not limited to the area of anti-infective agents, because resistance has also been encountered with anti-proliferative agents used in cancer chemotherapy. Therefore, there exists a need for new anti-infective and anti-proliferative agents that are both effective against resistant bacteria and resistant strains of cancer cells.
In the antibiotic area, despite the problem of increasing antibiotic resistance, no new major classes of antibiotics have been developed for clinical use since the approval in the United States in 2000 of the oxazolidinone ring-containing antibiotic, N-[[(5S)-3-[3-fluoro-4-(4-morpholinyl)phenyl]-2-oxo-5-oxazolidinyl]methyl acetamide, which is known as linezolid and is sold under the trade name ZYVOX®. See, R. C. Moellering, Jr., “Linezolid: The First Oxazolidinone Antimicrobial,” Annals of Internal Medicine, vol. 138, no. 2, pp. 135-142 (2003).
Linezolid was approved for use as an anti-bacterial agent active against Gram-positive organisms. Unfortunately, linezolid-resistant strains of organisms are already being reported. See, Tsiodras et al, Lancet, vol. 358, p. 207 (2001); Gonzales et al, Lancet, vol. 357, p. 1179 (2001); Zurenko et al., Proceedings Of The 39th Annual Interscience Conference On Antibacterial Agents And Chemotherapy (ICAAC), San Francisco, Calif., USA (Sep. 26-29, 1999). Because linezolid is both a clinically effective and commercially significant anti-microbial agent, investigators have been working to develop other effective linezolid derivatives.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, there is an ongoing need for new anti-infective and anti-proliferative agents. Furthermore, because many anti-infective and anti-proliferative agents have utility as anti-inflammatory agents and prokinetic agents, there is also an ongoing need for new compounds useful as anti-inflammatory and prokinetic agents. Because of these needs for these therapeutic agents there is a corresponding need for processes for making these compounds and key intermediates in the synthesis thereof.