Simultaneous Determination of Bifonazole and Benzyl Alcohol in Pharmaceutical Formulations by Reverse-Phase HPLC

A simple, precise and sensitive reverse-phase high performance liquid chromatographic (RP-HPLC) method has been developed for the quantitation of bifonazole, an imidazole antifungal, simultaneously with benzyl alcohol, used as preservative, in pharmaceutical formulations. Method employed Zorbax Eclipse XDB-C18 (250×4.6 mm i.d., 5 m) column, methanol - ammonium acetate (pH 2; 65 mM) (65:35, v/v, pH^* 3.6) as mobile phase with flow rate of 1 mL min^–1 and variable UV detection at 220 and 252 nm. The proposed method was validated by testing its linearity, selectivity, recovery, repeatability, LOD/LOQ values and it was successfully employed for the determination of bifonazole and benzyl alcohol in pharmaceutical cream-based formulations.