Effective HPLC (High performance liquid Chromatography) method development
In order to have an efficient method development process, the following three questions must be answered:
1.1. What are the critical components for a HPLC method?
The 3 critical components for a HPLC method are: sample preparation, HPLC analysis and standardization (calculations). During the preliminary method development stage, all individual components should be investigated before the final method optimization. This gives the scientist a chance to critically evaluate the method performance in each component and streamline the final method optimization.
1.2. What should be the percentage of time spent on different steps of the method development?
The rest of the article will discuss the recommended sequence of events and the percentage of time that should be spent on each step in order to meet the method development timeline. One common mistake is that most scientists focus too much on the HPLC chromatographic conditions and neglect the other 2 components of the method (i.e., sample preparation, standardization). The recommended timeline would help scientists investigate different aspects of the method development and allocate appropriate time in all steps.
1.3. How should a method development experiment be designed?
A properly designed method development experiment should consider the following
important questions:
What sample should be used at each stage?
What should the scientists look for in these experiments?
What are the acceptance criteria?
2. Method Development Timeline
The following is a suggested method development timeline for a typical HPLC-UV related substance method. The percentage of time spent on each stage is proposed to ensure the scientist will allocate sufficient time to different steps. In this approach, the three critical components for a HPLC method (sample preparation, HPLC analysis and standardization) will first be investigated individually. Each of these steps will be
Discussed in more detail in the following paragraphs.
Step 1: Define method objectives and understand the chemistry (10%) Determine the goals for method development (e.g., what is the intended use of the method?), and to understand the chemistry of the analytes and the drug product.
Step 2: Initial HPLC conditions (20%)
Develop preliminary HPLC conditions to achieve minimally acceptable separations. These HPLC conditions will be used for all subsequent method development experiments.
Step 3: Sample preparation procedure (10%)
Develop a suitable sample preparation scheme for the drug product
Step 4: Standardization (10%)
Determine the appropriate standardization method and the use of relative response factors in calculations.
Step 5: Final method optimization/robustness (20%)
Identify the “weaknesses” of the method and optimize the method through experimental design. Understand the method performance with different conditions, different instrument set ups and different samples.
Step 6: Method validation (30%)
Complete method validation according to ICH guidelines 3. Define Method Objectives There is no absolute end to the method development process.
The question is what is the “acceptable method performance”? The acceptable method performance is determined by the objectives set in this step. This is one of the most important considerations often overlooked by scientists. In this section, the different end points (i.e., expectations) will be discussed in descending order of significance.
Effective HPLC method development(Part I)
3. Define Method Objectives
There is no absolute end to the method development process. The question is what is the “acceptable method performance”? The acceptable method performance is determined by the objectives set in this step. This is one of the most important considerations often overlooked by scientists. In this section, the different end points (i.e., expectations) will be discussed in descending order of significance.
3.1 Analytes:
For a related substance method, determining the “significant and relevant” related substances is very critical. With limited experience with the drug product, a good way to determine the significant related substances is to look at the degradation products observed during stress testing. Significant degradation products observed during stress testing should be investigated in the method development.
Based on the current ICH guidelines on specifications, the related substances method for active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) should focus on both the API degradation products and synthetic impurities, while the same method for drug products should focus only on the degradation products. In general practice, unless there are any special toxicology concerns, related substances below the limit of quantitation (LOQ) should not be reported and therefore should not be investigated.
In this stage, relevant related substances should be separated into 2 groups:
3.1.1. Significant related substances: Linearity, accuracy and response factors should be established for the significant related substances during the method validation. To limit the workload during method development, usually 3 or less significant related substances should be selected in a method.
3.1.2 Other related substances: These are potential degradation products that are not significant in amount. The developed HPLC conditions only need to provide good resolution for these related substances to show that they do not exist in significant levels.
3.2 Resolution (Rs)
A stability indicating method must resolve all significant degradation products from each other. Typically the minimum requirement for baseline resolution is 1.5. This limit is valid only for 2 Gaussian-shape peaks of equal size. In actual method development, Rs = 2.0 should be used as a minimum to account for day to day variability, non-ideal peak shapes and differences in peak sizes.
3.3 Limit of Quantitation (LOQ)
The desired method LOQ is related to the ICH reporting limits. If the corresponding ICH reporting limit is 0.1%, the method LOQ should be 0.05% or less to ensure the results are accurate up to one decimal place. However, it is of little value to develop a method with an LOQ much below this level in standard practice because when the method is too sensitive, method precision and accuracy are compromised.
3.4 Precision, Accuracy
Expectations for precision and accuracy should be determined on a case by case basis. For a typical related substance method, the RSD of 6 replicates should be less than 10%. Accuracy should be within 70 % to 130% of theory at the LOQ level.
3.5 Analysis time
A run time of about 5-10 minutes per injection is sufficient in most routine related substance analyses. Unless the method is intended to support a high-volume assay, shortening the run time further is not recommended as it may compromise the method performance in other aspects (e.g., specificity, precision and accuracy.)
3.6 Adaptability for Automation
For methods that are likely to be used in a high sample volume application, it is very important for the method to be “automatable”. The manual sample preparation procedure should be easy to perform. This will ensure the sample preparation can be automated in common sample preparation workstations.
4. Understand the Chemistry
Similar to any other research project, a comprehensive literature search of the chemical and physical properties of the analytes (and other structurally related compounds) is essential to ensure the success of the project.
4.1 Chemical Properties
Most sample preparations involve the use of organic-aqueous and acid-base extraction
techniques. Therefore it is very helpful to understand the solubility and pKa of the analytes. Solubility in different organic or aqueous solvents determines the best composition of the sample solvent. pKa determines the pH in which the analyte will exist as a neutral or ionic species. This information will facilitate an efficient sample extraction scheme and determine the optimum pH in mobile phase to achieve good separations.
4.2 Potential Degradation Products
Subjecting the API or drug product to common stress conditions provides insight into the stability of the analytes under different conditions. The common stress conditions include acidic pH, basic pH, neutral pH, different temperature and humidity conditions, oxidation, reduction and photo-degradation. These studies help to determine the significant related substances to be used in method development, and to determine the sample solvent that gives the best sample solution stability.
In addition, the structures of the analytes will indicate the potential active sites for degradation. Knowledge from basic organic chemistry will help to predict the reactivity of the functional groups. For example, some excipients are known to contain trace level of peroxide impurities. If the analyte is susceptible to oxidation, these peroxide impurities could possibly produce significant degradation products.
4.3 Sample Matrix
Physical (e.g., solubility) and chemical (e.g., UV activity, stability, pH effect) properties of the sample matrix will help to design an appropriate sample preparation scheme. For example, Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose (HPMC) is known to absorb water to form a very viscous solution, therefore it is essential to use mostly organic solvents in sample preparation.
Effective HPLC method development(Part II)
5. Initial Method Conditions
The objective at this stage is to quickly develop HPLC conditions for subsequent method development experiments. A common mistake is that scientists spend too much time at this stage trying to get a perfect separation.
5.1 Preliminary HPLC Conditions
In order to develop preliminary HPLC conditions in a timely fashion, scientists should use artificial mixtures of active pharmaceutical ingredients and related substances at relatively high concentrations (e.g., 1-2% of related substance relative to API) to develop the preliminary HPLC conditions. The concentration ratio between API and the related substances should be maintained to ensure the chromatography represents that of a real sample. Alternatively, a highly stressed sample (e.g., 5% degradation) can also be used at this stage. With the known composition and high levels of degradation products in the sample, one can evaluate the chromatography to determine whether there are adequate separations for all analyte. The high concentrations of related substances are used to ensure all peaks will be detected.
Computer assisted method development can be very helpful in developing the preliminary HPLC conditions quickly. Since the objective at this stage is to quickly develop HPLC conditions for subsequent method development experiments, scientists should focus on the separation of the significant related substances (section 3.1.1) instead of trying to achieve good resolution for all related substances. These significant related substances should be baseline resolved from each other with Rs > 2.0. After the preliminary method development, the HPLC conditions can be further fine-tuned at a later stage (see section 8, method optimization/ robustness) to achieve the required specificity for the other related substances.
5.2 Aged HPLC Column
An aged HPLC column should be used to develop the initial HPLC conditions. Usually it is more difficult to achieve the required resolution with an aged column (e.g., column with about 200 injections). This will reflect the worst case scenario likely to be encountered in actual method uses, and help the long-term method robustness. In general, develop all methods with HPLC columns from the same vendor. The preferred brand of HPLC column should be selected primarily based on the long term stability and lot to lot reproducibility.
6. Sample Preparation
6.1 Selection of Sample Solvent
This stage focuses on the selection of the sample solvent (for extraction) and the proper sample preparation procedures. Investigate the effect of sample solvents of different % organic, pH, extraction volume and extraction procedure on accuracy, precision, sensitivity (LOQ) and the changes in the chromatography (e.g., peak shape, resolution). Whenever possible use the mobile phase in the sample preparation. This will ensure that there will not be any compatibility issues between the sample solution and the HPLC conditions.
6.1.1 Accuracy: To investigate the accuracy in sample preparation (i.e., extraction efficiency), prepare a spiked solution by adding known amounts of related substances into a sample matrix. Compare responses of the spike solutions and the neat standard solutions to assess the recovery from the sample preparation. In this stage, since only one particular step is being investigated (i.e., sample preparation), close to theoretical recovery should be observed at this point (e.g., 90-110%).
6.1.2 Precision: Use the stressed sample to represent the worst case scenario and perform replicate sample preparations from the same sample composite. Investigate the consistency of the related substance profile (i.e., any missing peaks?) and the repeatability results from these preparations.
6.2 Another objective is to determine the sample concentration that gives an acceptable LOQ (Signal to Noise ratio, S/N) in low level spike concentrations. The sample concentration should be low enough to maintain linearity and precision, but high enough to achieve the desired LOQ. For example, if the ICH reporting limit for this drug product is 0.1%, the LOQ of the method should be less than 0.05% (i.e., desired LOQ, in %). By using spike sample solutions of very diluted concentrations for the significant related substances, estimate the concentrations that give a S/N of about 10 for the significant related substances. This estimated concentration is the approximate LOQ concentration (i.e., estimated LOQ concentration, in mg/mL).
The following equation can be used to estimate the target sample concentration for the method:
Target sample concentration =
estimated LOQ concentration (mg/mL) x 1/desired LOQ (%) x 100%
Effective HPLC method development(Part III)