Palladium-Catalysed C-C Coupling: Then and Now

Synthetic procedures for the manufacture of complex drug molecules have changed continually over the years as methodology has improved. However, a step change in efficiency has been achieved by switching from a linear pattern of steps (often more than ten) to a different strategy: the parallel synthesis of key precursor components and then linking them together at a late stage in the process. This has only been possible due to the advances in coupling chemistry that have occurred over the last thirty years, many of them related to the use of palladium catalysis. This article sets out to describe some of the early work in palladium-catalysed C-C bond formation and how the methodologies have changed due to recent developments.