Fabrication of novel electropolymerized conductive polymer of hydrophobic perfluorinated aniline as transducer layer on glassy carbon electrode: application to midazolam as a model drug of benzodiazepines.

The objective of this study is to fabricate solid-contact ion selective electrodes (SC-ISEs) that have long term stable potential. Various conducting polymers such as polyaniline and its derivatives have been successfully employed to improve the potential stability in SC-ISEs. Recently, the role of hydrophobicity at the interface between the conducting polymer solid contact and the ion sensing membrane has been investigated and figured out that the hydrophobic interfaces preclude water layer formation that deteriorate the SC-ISEs potential stability and reproducibility. In this work, a hydrophobic polyaniline derivative was fabricated on the surface of a glassy carbon electrode by electropolymerization of perfluorinated aniline monomers in acidic solution. The electropolymerized hydrophobic polymer was characterized by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The fabricated electrode was employed for determination of midazolam-a model drug-in pharmaceutical formulation without prior extraction. The SC-ISEs performance was optimized, and the potential drift was compared to control SC-ISEs, the SC-ISE linear range was 1 × 10-6-1 × 10-2 M, LOD was estimated to be 9.0 × 10-7 M, and potential drift was reduced to 100 µV/h.

Advanced chemometric methods as powerful tools for impurity profiling of drug substances and drug products: Application on bisoprolol and perindopril binary mixture.

Impurity profiling has a rising importance nowadays due to the increased health problems associated with impurities and degradation products found in several drug substances and formulations. Three advanced, accurate and precise chemometric methods were developed as impurity profiling methods for a mixture of bisoprolol fumarate (BIS) and perindopril arginine (PER) with their degradation products which represent drug impurity or a precursor to such impurity. The methods applied were Partial Least Squares (PLS-1), Multivariate Curve Resolution-Alternating Least Squares (MCR-ALS) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). Genetic Algorithm (GA) was used as a variable selection tool to select the most significant wavelengths for the three chemometric models. For proper analysis, a 5-factor 5-level experimental design was used to establish a calibration set of 25 mixtures containing different ratios of the drugs and their degradation products (impurities). The validity of the proposed methods was assessed using an independent validation set. The designed models were able to predict the concentrations of the drugs and the degradation products/impurities in the validation set and pharmaceutical formulation. The proposed methods presented a powerful alternative to traditional and expensive chromatographic methods as impurity profiling tools.

Optimization of localized surface plasmon resonance hot spots in surface-enhanced infrared absorption spectroscopy aluminum substrate as an optical sensor coupled to chemometric tools for the purity assay of quinary mixtures.

Surface-enhanced infrared absorption spectroscopy offers an alternative to conventional IR spectroscopy and utilizes the signal enhancement exerted by the plasmon resonance of nanostructured metal thin films. Citrate-capped silver nanoparticles were prepared in a single-step method, and their morphology was identified using transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, ultraviolet/visible spectrophotometry, and Zetasizer. The nanoparticles generated were deposited on the surface of cheap aluminum slides for different durations aiming for the selection of the best time producing a thin film, suitable to act as a lab-on-a-chip SEIRA substrate. These substrates were coupled to partial least squares regression tools for simultaneous resolving of the quinary mixture in commercial dosage forms of bisoprolol, perindopril, bisoprolol acid degradation product, bisoprolol alkali degradation product, and perindoprilat in concentration ranges of 15-75, 60-300, 15-55, 12-60, and 20-80 µg/mL with limits of detection values of 0.69, 3.43, 0.97, 1.25, and 1.09 µg/mL, respectively. Overall, we could demostrate that the localized surface plasmon resonance sensor coupled to chemometrics provides cheap, simple, selective, multiplex, rapid, and molecular specific procedures for impurity detection, which would be beneficial in many applications for quality control and quality accuracy of active pharmaceutical ingredients.

Stability-Indicating RP-HPLC and CE Methods for Simultaneous Determination of Bisoprolol and Perindopril in Pharmaceutical Formulation: A Comparative Study.

Two fast, accurate and selective stability-indicating methods were developed and validated for the simultaneous determination of bisoprolol, perindopril and three of their possible degradation products. The first proposed method was a gradient reversed phase-high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method, whereas the second was a capillary electrophoresis method. The structures of the obtained degradation products were elucidated using infrared and mass spectrometry. They were also confirmed to be either a drug impurity in the British Pharmacopoeia or a precursor to such impurity. The linearity for bisoprolol and perindopril was achieved in the range of 1-20 µg mL-1 and 5-30 µg mL-1 for HPLC and capillary electrophoresis methods, respectively. The proposed methods were validated according to the International Conference on Harmonisation guidelines. The HPLC method proved to be more sensitive and succeeded in the quantitative determination of the obtained degradation products. Also, it was able to quantify perindopril impurity up to three times lower than the desired limit set by the British Pharmacopoeia. They were successfully employed in the determination of bisoprolol and perindopril in their combined pharmaceutical formulation.