Improving sensitivity in chiral supercritical fluid chromatography for analysis of active pharmaceutical ingredients.

Despite its status as the preferred method for routine enantiopurity analysis in pharmaceutical research, supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) has historically been unsuited for the accurate and precise measurements required for release testing of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) under current good manufacturing processes (cGMPs). Insufficient signal to noise, as compared to HPLC, has heretofore been the major limitation of the chiral SFC approach. We herein describe an investigation into the fundamental limitations and sources of noise in the SFC approach, identifying thermal, electronic, and mechanical sources of noise within the flow cell as key parameters contributing to reduced sensitivity. A variety of instrument modifications are explored, ultimately leading to the development of a new and improved flow cell and other instrument modifications that allow suitable sensitivity and accuracy to carry out GMP release testing for enantiopurity analysis using SFC.

Nature of the main contaminant in the drug primaquine diphosphate: SFC and SFC-MS methods of analysis.

The drug primaquine diphosphate is used for causative treatment of malaria. Using HPLC-MS and GC-MS, this research group was previously able to show that the main contaminant of primaquine is the positional isomer quinocide [I. Brondz, D. Mantzilas, U. Klein, D. Ekeberg, E. Hvattum, M.N. Lebedeva, F.S. Mikhailitsyn, G.D. Soulimanov, J. Roe, J. Chromatogr. B: Anal. Technol. Biomed. Life Sci. 800 (2004) 211-223; I. Brondz, U. Klein, D. Ekeberg, D. Mantzilas, E. Hvattum, H. Schultz, F. S. Mikhailitsyn, Asian J. Chem. 17 (2005) 1678-1688]. Primaquine and quinocide are highly toxic substances which can have a number of side effects upon use in medical treatment. A standard for quinocide is not typically commercially available. In the present work, supercritical fluid chromatography-mass spectrometry (SFC-MS) with two different columns was used to achieve a shorter analysis time for the separation between the positional isomers quinocide and primaquine in primaquine diphosphate and to elucidate additional information about differences in their MS fragmentation. Unlike using HPLC-MS, it was possible to achieve the differential fragmentation of positional isomers at branching points using the SFC-MS technique. The desired short analysis time was achieved using SFC equipped with a Discovery HS F5 column and the differential fragmentation of positional isomers during SFC-MS provides information on the differences in the structure of these substances. Using a Chiralpak AD-H chiral column, it was possible to resolve the enantiomers in primaquine and separate quinocide from those enantiomers.