THE DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF A FAST STABILITY INDICATING RP-HPLC METHOD FOR QUANTIFICATION OF LUMEFANTRINE AND ITS ORGANIC IMPURITIES USING CENTRAL COMPOSITE EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN

Abstract

Objective: The objective of the present study was to develop and validate a stability indicating RP-HPLC method for Lumefantrine (LF) and its organic impurities using a central composite design (CCD). Methods: A specific, simple quality control friendly isocratic elution method using reverse phase HPLC was developed for quantification of Lumefantrine (LF) and its organic impurities at a wavelength of 265 nm. The chromatographic separation was achieved on the column of Thermo Hypersil ODS C18 (150x4.6 mm, 3µ) with a buffer containing 0.1percent formic acid and acetonitrile 10:90 v/v as a mobile phase with a flow rate of 1.6 ml/min at 35 °C with a run time of 10 min. Based on the preliminary trials, CCD was employed to check the effect of independent variables such as Acetonitrile ratio (A), Flow rate (B), and Column oven temperature (C). While resolution between Lumefantrine (LF) and Impurity-A (X1), Impurity-A and Impurity-B (X2), and Plate count of Lumefantrine (LF) (X3) were considered as dependent variables and statistical evaluation performed by using design expert software. The optimized conditions were validated as per ICH guidelines. Results: The retention time of LF and its organic impurities were 1.9 min, 3.0, 4.5, and 6.4 min, respectively. Design space was established and desirability was found. LOD and LOQ for the Lumefantrine (LF) and its impurities were established with respect to test concentration. The plotted calibration curves were linear with a regression coefficient of R2>0.99, indicating that the linearity was within the limit. As a part of method validation, the parameters like Specificity with forced degradation, Linearity, Precision, Accuracy, Ruggedness, and Robustness were determined and the results were found to be within the allowable limits. Conclusion: The method developed and validated was found to be suitable for routine analysis and to be used for the measurement of Lumefantrine and its impurities. Since there is no stability indicating the RP-HPLC method with design space was reported in the literature, there is a need to develop quantitative methods under different conditions to achieve improvement in specificity and selectivity.