Novel diversely substituted 1-heteroaryl-2-imidazolines for fragment-based drug discovery

A palladium-catalyzed Buchwald–Hartwig arylation protocol has been applied to achieve high-yielding N-heteroarylation of a diverse set of privileged 2-imidazolines. The resulting compounds are of interest as a novel type of molecular tool for fragment-based drug discovery. The potential for combining two 2-imidazoline moieties in a heteroarene-linked dimer via sequential Pd-catalyzed arylation has been demonstrated.