Alkyl Sulfinates: Radical Precursors Enabling Drug Discovery

The modern constraints of drug discovery demand a rigorous validation process of all new reactions prior to widespread implementation. To this end, sulfinates (now marketed as Diversinates) have seen alacritous adoption by the medicinal chemistry community, as evidenced by the recent outpour of both patent and primary reports. Featuring more than 50 examples, this review seeks to highlight those particularly compelling cases published in the past 5 years, with an eye toward the identification of robust and predictable trends in reactivity.