Chroman and isochroman motifs are widespread elements in natural products and have attracted much attention from a wide area of science including natural product chemistry as well as medicinal and synthetic organic chemistry. Chroman-derived natural products possess a broad array of biological activities such as antimicrobial, antiviral, antiproliferative, sex pheromone, antitumor and central nervous system activity.1 Probably the most prominent example of such a biologically active compound with a chroman core is the vitamin E family [α-tocopherol (1)] (Fig. 1), which consists of eight naturally occurring compounds differing in the aliphatic side chain and the residues of the aromatic core leading to varying biological activity.2 A representative example of a synthetic pharmaceutical agent with a chroman scaffold is cromakalin (2), a potent activator of ATP-dependent potassium channels that is known to induce apoptosis.3 Also a plethora of natural products show the chroman core such as the potent anti-HIV agent daurichromenic acid (3), which was isolated from Rhododendron dauricum ( Fig. 1). Its remarkable EC50 value of 5.67 ng/mL and the therapeutic index (TI) of 3710 encouraged a lot of synthetic organic chemists to establish a total synthesis.4