Ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography for the determination of exenatide in monkey plasma by tandem quadrupole mass spectrometry

A highly sensitive ultra-high-performance liquid chromatographic–tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC/MS/MS) method was developed for the quantification of the synthetic peptide drug of exenatide in monkey plasma. Sample preparation was carried out by solid-phase extraction (SPE), and bivalirudin was used as the internal standard (IS). An excellent chromatographic separation was obtained on a reversed-phase C(18) column with a gradient elution. Detection utilized a Qtrap 5500 system operated in the positive ion mode with multiple reaction monitoring (MRM). The proposed method was validated by assessing the specificity, linearity, intra- and inter-day precision and accuracy, recovery, and stability. The method resulted in a linear calibration range of 0.10–30 ng/mL, extracting with only 50 μL monkey plasma aliquots. The intra- and inter-day precisions (as relative standard deviation) were less than 7.5% and 9.6%, respectively. The method could be successfully utilized for the pharmacokinetic study of exenatide in monkeys following a single subcutaneous injection of Byetta.