The International Conference on Harmonisation Guidance in Practice: Stress Degradation Studies on Lamivudine and Development of a Validated Specific Stability-Indicating HPTLC Assay Method

A sensitive, selective, precise and stability-indicating high-performance thin-layer chromatographic method of analysis of lamivudine both as a bulk drug and in formulations was developed and validated. The solvent system consisted of carbon tetrachloride – methanol – chloroform - acetonitrile (7.0: 3.0: 2.0: 1.5, v/v/v/v). Densitometric analysis of lamivudine was carried out in the absorbance mode at 275 nm. This system was found to give compact spots for lamivudine (R_F value of 0.36 ± 0.02) following double development of chromatoplates with the same mobile phase. Lamivudine was subjected to acid and alkali hydrolysis, oxidation, dry heat and wet heat treatment and photo degradation. The drug undergoes degradation under acidic, basic conditions, oxidation, wet heat and photo degradation. Also the degraded products were well resolved from the pure drug with significantly different R_F values. Linearity was found to be in the range of 50 – 1000 ng spot^–1 with significantly high value of correlation coefficient. The linear regression analysis data for the calibration plots showed good linear relationship with r² = 0.9994 ± 0.05 in the working concentration range of 300 ng spot^–1 to 1000 ng spot^–1. The mean value of slope and intercept were 0.11 ± 0.08 and 10.47 ± 1.21, respectively. The method was validated for precision, robustness and recovery. The limit of detection and quantitation were 15 ng spot^–1 and 40 ng spot^–1 respectively. As the method could effectively separate the drug from its degradation products, it can be employed as a stability indicating one. Moreover, the proposed HPTLC method was utilized to investigate the kinetics of acid degradation process. Arrhenius plot was constructed and activation energy was calculated.