Simultaneous determination of a new antimalarial agent, CDRI compound 80/53, and its metabolite primaquine in serum by high-performance liquid chromatography.

Compound 80/53 (I) is a new substance being developed as an antimalarial agent. It is unstable in acidic conditions where it is converted into primaquine. A high-performance liquid chromatographic assay for simultaneous determination in serum of I and primaquine has been developed. Conditions were optimized to minimize the conversion of I into primaquine. The method includes extraction of the unchanged compound and primaquine from serum samples with hexane-2-propanol (pH > 8). Separation was accomplished by reversed-phase chromatography on a C18 column with acetonitrile-tetrahydrofuran-phosphate buffer. The recoveries of I and primaquine were always greater than 70%. No interference was observed in extracts obtained from drug-free serum. The detector response was linear with concentrations of I and the metabolite in the ranges 25-400 and 10-180 ng/ml, respectively, and the within-day precision (coefficient of variation) remained less than 13.7% for I and 12.5% for primaquine. The method is suitable for the determination of concentration-time profiles of I and primaquine in human serum.