AQbD Driven Development of an RP-HPLC Method for the Quantitation of Abiraterone Acetate for its Pharmaceutical Formulations in the Presence of Degradants

Abstract

Abiraterone acetate is a well-known anticancer drug and a steroidal derivative of progesterone for treatment of patients with hormone-refractory prostate cancer. Chemometrics-assisted reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) development of the drug abiraterone acetate has been employed in this study using an analytical quality by design (AQbD) approach. Drug separation was performed using a Princeton Merck-Hibar Purospher STAR (C18, 250 mm × 4.6 mm) i.d., 5 μm particle size) with ultraviolet detection at 235 nm. A Box-Behnken statistical experimental design with response surface methodology was executed for method optimization and desired chromatographic separation from its formulation with a few numbers of experimental trials. The impact of three independent variables, namely, composition of the mobile phase, pH, and flow rate, on response retention time and peak area was studied by constructing an arithmetic model from these variables. Optimized experimental conditions for the proposed work include the mobile phase acetonitrile and phosphate buffer (10 mM KH2PO4) (20:80 %v/v). At the concentration range of 2-100 μg/mL, a linear calibration curve was found. Recovery was performed at three concentrations and was foun to be between 98% and 102%. The 3D response surface curves revealed that mobile phase composition and flow rate were the most substantial critical factors affecting desired responses. An attempt has been made to develop and validate an economical, precise, robust, stability-indicating AQbD-based RP-HPLC method that can be employed successfully for the routine analysis of abiraterone acetate in quality control labs.