TMC-95 (5) has garnered considerable synthetic attention due to its potential as a novel cancer chemotheraputic and its unusual chemical structure.  Our strategy for the construction of the western biaryl portion involves the use of a novel Diels-Alder reaction between diene 1 and sulfone 2 to yield adduct 3 in good yield.   Subsequent functionalization to the biaryl 4 will be discussed.  In addition, our efforts to further manipulate the dihalide 4 into the non-peptide portion of 5 will be presented.