Choices of chromatographic methods as stability indicating assays for pharmaceutical products: A review

Stability indicating assay describes a technique which is used to analyse the stability of drug substance or active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) in bulk drug and pharmaceutical products. Stability indicating assay must be properly validated as per ICH guidelines. The important components in a stability indicating assay include sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, reliability, reproducibility and robustness. A validated assay is able to measure the concentration changes of drug substance/API with time and make reliable estimation of the quantity of the degradation impurities. The drug substance is separated and resolved from the impurities. Pros and cons of HPLC, GC, HPTLC, CE and SFC were discussed and reviewed. Stability indicating assay may consist of the combination of chromatographic separation and spectroscopic detection techniques. Hyphenated system could demonstrate parallel quantitative and qualitative analysis of drug substances and impurities. Examples are HPLC-DAD, HPLC-FL, GC-MS, LC-MS and LC-NMR. The analytes in the samples are separated in the chromatography while the impurities are chemically characterised by the spectroscopy in the system. In this review, various chromatographic methods which had been employed as stability indicating assays for drug substance and pharmaceutical formulation were systematically reviewed, and the application of hyphenated techniques in impurities characterisation and identification were also discussed with supporting literatures.

Reliable GC Method for Related Substances in Divalproex Sodium Drug

A specific GC method has been developed, optimized and validated for the determination of seven related substances namely N,N-dimethyl valpronamide, valeric acid, 2-methyl valeric acid, 2-ethyl valeric acid, 2-isopropyl valeric acid, 2-n-butyl valeric acid and 2-propyl-2-pentenoic acid in divalproex sodium (DPS) drug substance. Chromatographic separations of these seven impurities were achieved on DB-FFAP column (30 m × 0.53 mm, 1.0 μm), which consists nitroterephthalic acid modified polyethylene glycol material as stationary phase. DPS is a coordination complex of the sodium valproate and valproic acid (VPA). Nonanoic acid is used as internal standard. All the seven related substances, VPA and nonanoic acid were extracted into dichloromethane and monitored by GC with flame ionization detector. The performance of the developed method was assessed by evaluating specificity, linearity, sensitivity, precision, accuracy and robustness. Forced degradation experiments were conducted to evaluate the degradation behavior of DPS. The established limits of detection (LODs) and limits of quantification (LOQs) values for the related substances were in the ranges of 4-5 and 12-15 μg mL-1, respectively. Further, for VPA, LOD and LOQ values were 4 and 12 μg mL-1, respectively. The correction factors of these related substances with respect to VPA and lie between 0.92 and 1.44. The average recoveries were in the range of 92.4-108.4%.

Identification of novel small-molecule inhibitors targeting menin–MLL interaction, repurposing the antidiarrheal loperamide

Scaffold hopping combines with biochemical studies and medicinal chemistry optimizations, leading to potent inhibitors of the menin–MLL interaction.