Simultaneous quantification of sildenafil and N‐desmethyl sildenafil in human plasma by UFLC coupled with ESI‐MS/MS and pharmacokinetic and bioequivalence studies in Malay population

A simple, rapid, specific and reliable UFLC coupled with ESI‐MSMS assay method to simultaneously quantify sildenafil and N‐desmethyl sildenafil, with loperamide as internal standard, was developed. Chromatographic separation was performed on a Thermo Scientific Accucore C₁₈ column with an isocratic mobile phase composed of 0.1% v/v formic acid in purified water–methanol (20:80, v/v), at a flow rate of 0.3 mL/min. Sildenafil, N‐desmethyl sildenafil and loperamide were detected with proton adducts at m/z 475.4 > 58.2, 461.3 > 85.2 and 477.0 > 266.1 in multiple reaction monitoring positive mode, respectively. Both analytes and internal standard were extracted by diethyl ether. The method was validated over a linear concentration range of 10–800 ng/mL for sildenafil and 10–600 ng/mL for N‐desmethyl sildenafil with correlation coefficient (r²) ≥0.9976 for sildenafil and (r²) ≥0.9992 for N‐desmethyl sildenafil. The method was precise, accurate and stable. The proposed method was applied to study the bioequivalence between a 100 mg dose of two pharmaceutical products: Viagra (original) and Edyfil (generic) products. AUC_0–t, C_max and T_max were 2285.79 ng h/mL, 726.10 ng/mL and 0.94 h for Viagra and 2363.25 ng h/mL, 713.91 ng/mL and 0.83 hour for Edyfil. The 90% confidence interval of these parameters of this study fall within the regulatory range of 80–125%, hence they are considered as bioequivalent. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.