Reverse phase HPLC determination of sunitinib malate using UV detector, its isomerisation study, method development and validation

Sunitinib malate, as an anticancer compound and a multi-targeted tyrosine-kinase inhibitor for treatment of glioma, was comprehensively studied by using different liquid chromatography methods. Since sunitinib malate shows Z-E isomerism, various reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) programs were designed to access quantitative determination and good separation of Z-E stereoisomers. Moreover, some impurities including N-oxide and impurity B were to be separated from the main isomer with acceptable resolution. In the present work, different RP-HPLC programs were developed in which the type of mobile phase, flow rate, pH, and temperature were optimized to reach the best analysis conditions and control the rate of Z to E conversion. In addition, the effect of some operational parameters during the solution preparation including initial concentration of the analyte, temperature, pH, and type of solvent on the stability of Z isomer were investigated. The opted conditions for quantitative analysis were C8-Hector column as stationary phase, methanol as solvent, ammonium acetate buffer containing triethylamine as mobile phase, the pH of mobile phase of 8.5, the flow rate of 1.0 mL/min, and detection at 425 nm. In this situation the peaks of E and Z isomers were at 16.3 and 19.7 min. Full validation of the designed method was done based on ICH guidelines.