Automated determination of reboxetine by high-performance liquid chromatography with column-switching and ultraviolet detection

A fully automated method including column-switching and isocratic high-perf ormance Liquid chromatography (HPLC) was developed for quantitative analysi s of the new antidepressant reboxetine, a noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor. After serum injection into the HPLC system and on-line sample clean-up on a silica C-8 (10x4.0 mm I.D.) clean-up column with an eluent consisting of 2.5% acetonitrile in deionized water, the chromatographic separation was pe rformed on an analytical column (Lichrospher CN; 250x4.6 mm I.D.) with an e luent of acetonitrile-aqueous potassium phosphate buffer (0.008 M, pH 6.4) (50:50). The UV detector was set at 273 or 226 nm. The limit of quantificat ion was about 15 ng/ml at 273 nm and about 4 ng/ml at 226 nm. The day-to-da y relative standard deviation ranged between 2.7 and 6.7% with recovery rat es greater than or equal to 90%. Linear regression analyses revealed correl ation coefficients >0.998. The method can be applied to therapeutic drug mo nitoring of reboxetine as well as pharmacokinetic studies. (C) 2000 Elsevie r Science B. V. All rights reserved.