Developed and validated stability indicating HPLC method for the determination of epirubicin in bulk drug, marketed injection and polymeric nanoparticles

Present work is aimed to develop a simple, sensitive, robust and reliable HPLC method for routine quality control of epirubicin (EPI) in bulk drug, marketed injections and polymeric nanoparticles. Separation was carried out by C18 column. Isocratic elution was carried out using mobile phase A: 0.16% o-phosphoric acid solution, B: acetonitrile and methanol mixture (80:20, v/v) in the ratio of 60:40 (A:B) while the flow rate was maintained at 1mL/min. Analyses were performed at 233.5 nm using PDA detector. Excellent linear relationship was observed between peak-area versus drug concentration in the range of 1.0-100.0 mu g/mL (r(2), 0.999). Developed method was found to be sensitive (Limits of detection and quantification were found to be similar to 8 ng/mL and similar to 25 ng/mL, respectively), precise (RSD < 1.0%, for repeatability and <2.0% for intermediate precision, within acceptable ranges of precision), accurate (recovery in different dosage form, 94.65-100.26%, within acceptable range, 80-120%), specific and robust (% RSD <2, for system suitability parameters). Stress-induced degradation studies demonstrated that method can suitability be applied in the presence of degradants. Developed method has been successfully applied for the determination of entrapment efficiency, drug loading, in vitro release profile, in vitro permeation studies as well as stability assessment of polymeric nanoparticles.