Recent results suggest that [3]ferrocenophane may be an interesting motif in the development of cytotoxic anti-cancer agents. We here report the synthesis of three such compounds based on the 1[(p-R-phenyl)-phenyl-methylidenyl)]-[3]ferrocenophane skeleton with R=OH, NH(2) and NHC(O)CH(3) substitution on one of the phenyl rings. Cytotoxicity studies show that these compounds are up to four times more powerful against hormone-independent breast cancer cells than their corresponding ferrocene analogs. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.