Nozaki−Hiyama−Kishi (NHK) reaction and an allylic
rearrangement to assemble the 11-membered ring. The
intramolecular NHK reaction is a powerful cyclization method
that has given good results in some difficult cases.8,9 We
expected that the NHK reaction would enable the efficient
formation of the 11-membered ring skeleton of 1. Substrate 7
for the key NHK reaction would be obtained by coupling
fragments 8 and 9, both containing an alkenyl iodide moiety.
This convergent strategy could potentially streamline the
synthetic route. We envisaged that upper fragment 8 would
arise from commercially available 4-pentynyl acetate 10 through
an asymmetric epoxidation, whereas lower fragment 9 would be
derived from geranyl chloride 11 using our previously
established procedure involving a Barbier-type allylation.10