The invention provides a preparation method of pregnanolone, which comprises the following steps: 1) under the action of a first catalyst, progesterone and anhydride react to obtain a compound as shown in a formula (I); 2) under the action of a dehydrating agent and a second catalyst,
diol reacts with the compound shown in the formula (I), and a compound shown in a formula (II) is obtained after deprotection; 3) under the action of a ligand and a third catalyst, selectively reducing the compound as shown in the formula (II) by
hydrogen to obtain a compound as shown in a formula (III); and 4) reacting the compound as shown in the formula (III) with a
reducing agent, and deprotecting to obtain pregnanolone. According to the present invention, progesterone is adopted as the starting material,
enol esterification reaction, ketal protection, ester group
hydrolysis, hydrogenation and reduction
hydrolysis are performed to obtain pregnanolone, the method has characteristics of mild condition, conventional
reagent, simple operation and suitableness for industrialization, the obtained product has characteristics of good quality, purity of more than 99.0%, and total yield of about 90.0%.