High-performance liquid chromatographic separation of the impurities in a pharmaceutical raw material with the aid of computer simulation

A complex pharmaceutical raw material was characterized by means of reversed-phase gradient elution. By varying gradient steepness and mobile-phase pH, it was possible to optimize band spacing so as to separate 16 impurities or degradation products from the drug substance. Computer simulation was useful in interpreting these complex chromatograms and determining the maximum number of peaks that could be separated in this way. A marginal separation of all 17 sample components could be obtained, but the resulting method was quite pH-sensitive and therefore not very rugged. As an alternative, a rugged method was developed that separates the drug substance from all other sample components. The present study also describes how present computer simulation software for isocratic separation can be used to predict resolution for gradient elution runs as a function of pH.