Brown and co-workers have shown that the rates of reduction of amides, esters, and nitriles with borane-methyl sulfide can be significantly increased by the distillation of dimethyl sulfide from the reaction mixture and by employing boron trifluoride etherate as Lewis acid. [¹6] We were thus attracted to the possibility of employing this reagent combination for the synthesis of enantiopure β-amino alcohols 9 from lactamides 8, as borane-methyl sulfide is more convenient to ...