Spectrophotometric method for determination of atazanavir sulfate in capsule dosage form

1used in the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) Type II infection. ATV is re ported as poorly water soluble and a known substrate for both hepatic metabolizing enzyme Cytochrome 450 (CYP3A) and intestinal drug efflux pump, P-glycoprotein (Pgp) so have low oral bioavailability. 2 So co-administration of small dose of Ritonavir (RTV) is recommended as booster. This new drug is official in IP - 2010, but not included in BP or USP. The reported analytical methods for the determination of ATV are based on high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) 3-12 in biological samples like blood plasma, biological cells, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and blood serum. Stress degradation studies were reported analysed by HPLC and ultraviolet spectrophotometry. 13, 14 The present work was aimed to develop a visible spectrophotometric method, which is simple, sensitive, accurate and cost effective to evaluate the quality of the bulk and pharmaceutical formulations. The novelties of the developed methods are that the reagents used in both the methods are easily available and the mechanisms of reactions of the reagents are already well established. The reactions involved with these reagents are simple, rapid and sensitive. Spectrophotometric methods involve simple instrumentation which is cost effective as compared to other instrumental techniques. The present method involves the determination of ATV, which is a second line drug for treatment of type II HIV infection. Still now, the 2 nd line drugs are available at higher price, than the 1 st line drugs. The high