Cooperative iridium and organocatalysis: a new frontier in asymmetric chemistry

The cooperative catalyst approach has become a significant and burgeoning area in synthetic organic chemistry, garnering substantial attention from the scientific community in recent years. Unlike single metal catalysts or organocatalysts, the cooperative catalysis strategy enables previously unattainable transformations to be accomplished in a stereocontrolled manner with high efficiency. In particular, cooperative iridium–organocatalysis has emerged as a valuable tool for producing biologically active chiral molecules from easily accessible starting materials. Iridium metal catalysts have been effectively combined with a diverse range of organocatalysts, including Brønsted acids, Lewis bases, N-heterocyclic carbene catalysts, and even phase transfer catalysts. This review provides a comprehensive overview of this evolving field, encompassing reaction advancements and mechanistic insights, to offer readers a better understanding of how metal–organic catalysts influence reaction mechanisms and the suitable starting materials for each catalytic process.