Two simple, sensitive and inexpensive spectrophotometric methods for the de
termination of two choleretic drugs,, namely azintamide and timonacic, were
developed. The methods are based on the reducing action of the analyzed dr
ugs on ferriin and feri-bipyridyl releasing an equivalent amount of ferroin
and ferrobipyridyl complexes that were measured spectrophotometrically at
510 and 520 nm, respectively. The reaction conditions were studied and opti
mized. the reactions obey Beer's law, for azintamide and timonacic using fe
rroin and ferrobipyridyl over the ranges of 1.6-4.8, 3.2-11.2, 0.4-1.6, 0.8
-5.6 mg mL(-1), respectively. Interference from other drugs and common phar
maceutical excipients were investigated. The proposed methods were applied
to the analysis of pharmaceutical tablets containing azintamide, either alo
ne or in combination with pancreatin and cellulase. They were, also, applie
d to the analysis of some timonacic tablets. The results obtained compared
favorably with those obtained with other reported methods.