SPE-UPLC-MS/MS method for sensitive and rapid determination of aripiprazole in human plasma to support a bioequivalence study.

An improved and rugged UPLC-MS/MS method has been developed and validated for sensitive and rapid determination of aripiprazole in human plasma using aripiprazole-d8 as the internal standard (IS). The analyte and IS were extracted from 100 μL of human plasma by solid-phase extraction using Phenomenex Strata-X (30 mg, 1 cc) cartridges. Chromatography was achieved on an Acquity UPLC BEH C18 (50 mm × 2.1 mm, 1.7 μm) analytical column using methanol: 10mM ammonium formate (85:15, v/v) as the mobile phase with isocratic elution. Quantitation was done using multiple reaction monitoring in the positive ionization mode. The linearity of the method was established in the concentration range 0.05-80 ng/mL. The mean extraction recovery was greater than 96% across QC levels, while intra- and inter batch accuracy and precision (% CV) values ranged from 97.4 to 101.9% and from 1.20 to 3.72% respectively. The relative matrix effect in eight different lots of plasma samples, expressed as % CV for the calculated slopes of calibration curves was 1.08%. The stability of aripiprazole was studied under different storage conditions. The validated method was used to support a bioequivalence study of 10mg aripiprazole formulation in 36 healthy Indian subjects.
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