Direct comparisons with existing literature 25b techniques are illustrated in Scheme 9. Formation of 2-thiophene methanol ( ) and (4-(4,4,5,5-tetramethyl-1,3,2-dioxaborolan-2-yl)phenyl)methanol (52) highlight avoiding the use of transition metals to facilitate the reduction (Zn(OAc)2 vs NaBH4). Finally, the reduction of phenyl propionic acid to phenyl propanol (53) highlights the time economy and avoids the use of such extreme reaction conditions (6 MPa H2 gas pressure, 180 o C) and expensive catalysts to carry out the transformation. In order to compare more challenging substrates, we employed recent literature conditions, that uses Mn(CO)5 as the catalyst and reduced Ibuprofen (47) and the Merck informer library compound 49, only to show that our method of reduction is more attractive when compared to the current literature methods. To demonstrate the practical utility of the method, the reaction was performed on a gram scale. Gemfibrozil was selected as the substrate (scheme 10). As expected, the one-pot thioesterification -reduction proceeded smoothly Scheme 9. Gram scale synthesis of Gemfibrozil alcohol. a to give the desired product in 89% yield. It is noteworthy that the product was purified using a fast filtration column, which could possibly be avoided on scale, hence significantly saving time and cost. Moreover, it was demonstrated that the ethanol used for the reduction step can be recycled and reused for subsequent reactions (see ESI). The product exhibited high purity by 1 H and C NMR leading to an E Factor of only 1.96. This collection of results, on a scale up to 1.5 g, showcases the potential synthetic utility of this reduction in an industrial setting.