Alkyl Tosylates as Alkylating Reagents in the Catellani Reaction

A cooperative catalytic system involving a Pd/XPhos complex and inexpensive 5-norbornene-2-carbonitrile that enables the use of alkyl tosylates as alkylating reagents in the Catellani reaction has been developed. This mild, scalable protocol is compatible with a range of readily available functionalized aryl iodides and alkyl tosylates, as well as terminating olefins (45 examples, up to 97% yield).