Synthesis of Deferiprone as a Widely Used Iron-Chelating Drug for the Treatment of Iron-Overload Diseases

Abstract

Thalassemia is a genetic disease that significantly affects human health. The common treatment of thalassemia is the regular injection of red blood cell, which is associated with the accumulation of iron in different tissues of the body, and makes chelation therapy necessary. Deferiprone and deferoxamine are broadly used as iron chelating agents in the vast majority of thalassemia cases. In this study, an efficient method for the synthesis of deferiprone was used by reacting maltol with methylamine in a mixture of water and ethanol as solvent. The structure of deferiprone was assigned using different spectroscopic techniques such as IR, 1H-NMR, and 13C-NMR. The advantages of this pathway are simple, practical, one-pot cascade, mild condition and high yield. The statistics of the Ministry of Health of Iran show the growing trend of deferiprone drug consumption in the country. Therefore, the domestic preparation of this drug can help the pharmaceutical industry in order to reduce costs and make it available for target patients.Keywords: Synthesis, Deferiprone, Maltol, Methylamine, Iron chelating agent.

Keywords

• synthesis
• deferiprone
• maltol
• methylamine
• iron chelating agent