Pharmacokinetics, Bioequivalence, and Safety of Esomeprazole Magnesium Enteric-Coated Capsules in Healthy Chinese Subjects.

This bioequivalence study is critically important for drug production. Recently, a local pharmaceutical company produced esomeprazole magnesium enteric-coated capsules, a major drug to help to eradicate Helicobacter pylori, but the bioequivalence is not well known. The present study aimed to evaluate the bioequivalence of the 2 esomeprazole magnesium enteric-coated capsules and their pharmacokinetics and safety in 3 biological equivalence trials: fasting, feeding, and mixing. The fasting and mixing trials used single-centered randomized, open-label, single-dose, 2-treatment, 2-period, and 2-sequence crossover design, while the fed trials used single-centered, randomized, open-label, single-dose, 2-treatment, 3-period, 3-sequence partial crossover design. For the fasting and mixing trials, each of the 32 subjects was fasted overnight prior to taking the test preparations or reference preparations. In the fed trial, 54 subjects were given a high-fat meal 1 hour before the drugs were administered. Blood specimens from all subjects were collected against the light within 14 hours, with the plasma drug concentration being detected by the validated ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry analysis method. Geometric mean ratio of maximum concentration, the area under the concentration-time curve from time zero to the last measurable concentration, and area under the concentration-time curve from time zero to infinity with 90% confidence interval were calculated. The data from fasting, mixing, and fed trials met the bioequivalence criteria. No serious adverse reactions were found, suggesting that the test and reference preparations of esomeprazole magnesium enteric capsules have similar safety profile.

Pharmacokinetics, Bioequivalence, and Safety Studies of Pantoprazole Sodium Enteric-Coated Tablets in Healthy Subjects.

This study aimed to evaluate the bioequivalence of 2 pantoprazole sodium enteric-coated tablet formulations, a generic formulation and a branded formulation, and to investigate their pharmacokinetic and safety profiles. The study was designed as a single-center, randomized, open-label, single-dose, dual-period, and 2-sequence crossover trial, and was divided into fasting and postprandial human bioequivalence trials. In the first trial, 36 subjects were fasted overnight before they were given generic or branded tablets (during 2 separate administration periods). Separately, 42 subjects were provided a high-fat meal 1 hour before the drugs were administered. Blood specimens of each subject were obtained up to 24 hours after drug administration. No significant differences were observed between the pharmacokinetic profiles of the generic and branded pantoprazole sodium enteric-coated tablets. Bioequivalence was evaluated using 90% confidence intervals for the ratio of test/reference log area under the concentration-time curve over 24 hours, log area under the concentration-time curve to infinity (AUC0-∞ ), and log peak concentration (Cmax ). The 90% confidence intervals of the least squares geometric mean ratio of Cmax , area under the concentration-time curve from time zero to the last measurable concentration (AUC0-t ), and AUC0-∞ of 36 subjects in the fasting trial and of 40 of 41 subjects in the postprandial trial (Cmax [41], AUC0-t [41], and AUC0-∞ [40]) were in accordance with the bioequivalence criteria. No severe adverse effects were detected. The generic and branded pantoprazole sodium enteric-coated tablets were considered bioequivalent with similar safety profiles.

Comparison of liquid chromatography-ultraviolet and chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry for the determination of indapamide in human whole blood and their applications in bioequivalence studies.

The aim of this study was to compare two methods which were based on liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection (LC-UV) and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), respectively, to determine indapamide (CAS 26807-65-8) and to apply them to bioequivalence studies. The universal parameters, including selectivity, linearity, precision, and quantification limit, served as gold standard for the comparison of the two methods. As a result, the two methods were both very consistent and reliable. Furthermore, the LC-MS/MS method required only one-fifth the blood volume needed by the other method and was approximately 25 times more sensitive than the other method. The total run time of the LC-MS/MS method was 3.5 min per sample as opposed to 11 min for the other method. Forty healthy male Chinese volunteers were selected as subjects. One half were orally administrered 2.5 mg indapamide immediate release tablets while the other half were orally administered 1.5 mg indapamide sus-tained release coated tablets. The collected blood samples were determined with the two methods described above. The pharmacokinetic parameters were determined using a noncompartmental method. For the bioequivalence studies, the pharmacokinetic parameters acquired here were in line with the literature and parameters met the criteria set by the State Food and Drug Administration of China (SFDA) for bioequivalence study, indicating that generic drugs are bioequivalent to branded drugs. The present study suggests that the two methods based on LC-UV and LC-MS/MS were suitable for bioavailability studies of indapamide with different pharmaceutical formulations. Consequently, it can be believed that the criterion that each individual expected concentration range would need a given bioassay with the requested sensitivity is not absolutely right. In practice, most of the time, the highest sensitivity allows to bioassay concentrations in a higher range.