Two new related ways for the synthesis of lercanidipine have been reported: 1) The condensation of diketene (I) with the aminoalcohol (II) gives the corresponding acetoacetate ester (III), which is allowed to react with 3-nitrobenzaldehyde (IV) by means of HCl in chloroform yielding the expected benzylidene derivative (V). Finally, this compound is cyclized with methyl 3-aminocrotonate (VI) in refluxing isopropanol. 2) By esterification of 2,6-dimethyl-4-(3-nitrophenyl)-1,4-dihydropyridine-3,5-dicarboxylic acid monomethyl ester (VIII) with alcohol (II) by means of SOCl2 in DMF/dichloromethane.