Enantiomeric degradation of epinephrine in autoinjector products

Abstract

A previous study using reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) demonstrated that approximately 80% of 46 studied epinephrine autoinjectors (EAIs) had retained 90% or more of total epinephrine concentrations up to 30 months beyond their labeled expiration dates.1 Epinephrine is a chiral molecule where only the L(−) configuration demonstrates biological activity and the D(+) configuration is not considered biologically active. Inactive epinephrine is present as an impurity, formed as a byproduct of active epinephrine degradation.