Multicomponent reactions 9i.e., those that engage three or more starting materials to form a product that contains significant fragments of all of them), have been widely employed in the construction of compound libraries, especially in the context of diversity-oriented synthesis. While relatively less exploited, their use in target-oriented synthesis offers significant advantages in terms of synthetic efficiency. This review provides a critical summary of the use of multicomponent reactions for the preparation of active pharmaceutical principles.
Keywords: Asinger reaction; Gewald reaction; Hantzsch dihydropyridine synthesis; Hantzsch pyrrole synthesis; Mannich reaction; Passerini reaction; Petasis reaction; Povarov reaction; Strecker reaction; Ugi reaction.