A mixture of N-(3-chloro-4-morpholinophenyl)-3-oxobutanamide (0.59 g, 2.00 mmol), 2-(3-cyanophenoxy)acetamide (0.71 g, 4.03 mmol) and titanium tetraisopropanolate (4.8 mL) in xylene (20 mL) was stirred at 165° C. for 24 h. The mixture was cooled to rt and 30 mL of toluene and 40 mL of saturated NH4Cl aqueous solution were added. The resulting mixture was stirred at rt overnight and filtered and the filtrate was extracted with DCM (50 mL×3). The combined organic layers were dried over anhydrous Na2SO4 and concentrated in vacuo. The residue was purified by a silica gel column chromatography (PE/EtOAc (V/V)=1:1) to give the title compound as a yellow solid (0.51 g, 59%). The compound was characterized by the following spectroscopic data:
