Development and Validation of a Liquid Chromatographic Method for the Determination of Leflunomide: Application to in vitro Drug Metal Interactions

Leflunomide is a leading drug for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. The principle aim of this study was to develop and validate an RP‐HPLC method for the determination of leflunomide in bulk and pharmaceutical dosage form using diclofenac sodium as an internal standard. For this purpose, chromatography was accomplished on a Purospher Start, C₁₈ (5 (m, 12.5 cm×0.46 cm) column at ambient temperature. Methanol:water (80:20, V/V) solvent system was selected as mobile phase, the pH of which was adjusted to 3.4 by ortho‐phosphoric acid and delivered at a flow rate of 1.2 mL·min⁻¹. Seperation of leflunomide and diclofenac sodium was carried out on a Purospher Start, C₁₈ equipped with a UV‐visible detector at 248 nm. The suitability of the method for the quantitative determination of the drugs is proven by validation in accordance with the requirements laid down by the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) guidelines. The method was accurate (99.55%–100.03%), specific, linear (R²>0.999) and precise (intra‐day precision 0.023%–0.93% and inter‐day precision 0.26%–0.944%) in the range of 0.5–20 (g·mL⁻¹. The minimum limit of detection and quantification in pharmaceutical formulation were 0.05 and 0.15 (g·mL⁻¹, respectively. Thus the proposed method is simple, accurate, reproducible and suitable for the routine analysis of leflunomide in pharmaceutical formulations and was applied to study in vitro drug‐metal interactions.