A Fast, Stability-Indicating, and Validated Liquid Chromatography Method for the Purity Control of Lercanidipine Hydrochloride in Tablet Dosage Form

A robust, sensitive, and stability-indicating rapid resolution liquid chromatography method for the simultaneous determination of process impurities and degradation products of lercanidipine hydrochloride in pharmaceutical dosage form was developed and validated. The chromatographic separation was performed on the Zorbax SB C18 [(50 × 4.6) mm] 1.8 μm column, using gradient elution of a potassium dihydrogen phosphate buffer (pH 3.5, 0.01 M) and acetonitrile. The flow rate was 1.0 ml/min and UV detection was performed at 220 nm. The method was further evaluated for its stability-indicating capability by hydrolytic, oxidative, thermal, thermal with moisture, and photolytic degradation studies. All acceptance criteria of the International Conference on Harmonization guidelines for validation were covered in the method validation. This method can be used for purity control during manufacture and real time stability studies. A shorter run time of 10 minutes and good solution stability for at least 48 hours allowed the quantification of more than 50 samples per day with comparatively lower costs than existing methods.