Prediction of Degradation Profiles for Various Sartans under Solvent-Free Mechanochemical Conditions

For the approval of a drug, the stability data must be submitted to regulatory authorities. Such analyses are often time-consuming and cost-intensive. Forced degradation studies are mainly carried out under harsh conditions in the dissolved state, often leading to extraneous degradation profiles for a solid drug. Oxidative mechanochemical degradation offers the possibility of generating realistic degradation profiles. In this study, a sustainable mechanochemical procedure is presented for the degradation of five active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) from the sartan family: losartan potassium, irbesartan, valsartan, olmesartan medoxomil, and telmisartan. High-resolution mass spectrometry enabled the detection of impurities already present in untreated APIs and allowed the elucidation of degradation products. Significant degradation profiles could already be obtained after 15-60 min of ball milling time. Many of the identified degradation products are described in the literature and pharmacopoeias, emphasizing the significance of our results and the applicability of this approach to predict degradation profiles for drugs in the solid state.

Characterization of two new degradation products of atorvastatin calcium formed upon treatment with strong acids

Atorvastatin calcium (Lipitor^®, Sortis^®) is a well-established cholesterol synthesis enzyme (CSE) inhibitor commonly used in the therapy of hypercholesterolemia. This drug is known to be sensitive to acid treatment, but only little data has been published on the structures of the degradation products. Here we report the identification of two novel degradation products of atorvastatin, which are formed only under drastic acidic conditions. While treatment with conc. sulfuric acid led to a loss of the carboxanilide residue (accompanied by an expectable lactonization/dehydration process in the side chain), treatment with conc. aqueous hydrochloric acid gave a complex, bridged molecule under C–C-bond formation of the lactone moiety with the pyrrole, migration of the isopropyl group and loss of the carboxanilide residue. The novel degradation products were characterized by NMR spectroscopy, HRMS data and X-ray crystal structure analysis.