(en) Vindoline and vindorosine, are key intermediates in the preparation of the antitumour drugs vincristine and vinblastine. These alkaloids possess in common the same tetracyclic core, also known as the Büchi ketone. Our assembly of this crucial intermediate has been based upon a novel anionic polycyclisation reaction developed in our laboratory. In order to demonstrate the usefulness of our methodology, we next turned our attention to the synthesis of a different family of alkaloids, namely the ACNO analogues of morphine. These truncated derivatives have been found to retain potent analgesic activity. As a third part of this work, we have developed an asymmetric version of our methodology, which enabled the preparation of one single stereoisomer of the desired product.