To a degassed solution of 4,5-bis(diphenylphosphino)-9,9-dimethylxanthene (0.057 g, 0.1 mmol) and tris(dibenzylideneacetone)dipalladium(0) (0.045 g, 0.025 mmol) in toluene (6 mL) was added 4-(4-bromo-2-methyl-phenyl)-1-methyl-3-(2-pyridyl)-4,6,7,8-tetrahydropyrazolo[3,4-e][1,4]thiazepine (0.400 g, 0.96 mmol, Example #4 step D), cesium carbonate (0.470 g, 1.5 mmol) and sodium methanesulfinate (0.118 g, 1.2 mmol). The resulting mixture was heated at about 120° C. overnight. After cooling to rt, the mixture was diluted with ethyl acetate (50 mL), washed with water (20 mL) and brine (20 mL), dried (MgSO4), filtered and concentrated in vacuo. The residue was purified by column chromatography (SiO2, DCM/methanol 1:1) followed by prep-HPLC (Table 2, Method b) to give 1-methyl-4-(2-methyl-4-methylsulfonyl-phenyl)-3-(2-pyridyl)-4,6,7,8-tetrahydropyrazolo[3,4-e][1,4]thiazepine (0.015 g, 0.036 mmol, 3%) as an off white solid: LC-MS (Table 1, Method a) Rt=2.98 min; m/z 415 (M+H)+; 1H-NMR (CDCl3, Bruker 400 MHz) δ 2.65-2.73 (1H, m) 2.70 (3H, s) 2.81 (1H, ddd, J=15.0, 9.3, 2.4 Hz) 3.01 (3H, s) 3.23-3.32 (1H, m) 3.61-3.71 (1H, m) 3.84 (3H, s) 3.86 (1H, br s) 6.79 (1H, s) 7.09 (1H, ddd, J=7.4, 5.1, 1.0 Hz) 7.40 (1H, d, J=8.1 Hz) 7.58-7.64 (2H, m) 7.73 (1H, d, J=1.6 Hz) 7.86 (1H, d, J=8.0 Hz) 8.44 (1H, d, J=4.8 Hz).
