Why not using capillary electrophoresis in drug analysis?
CE and related methods are well-established techniques in the analysis of biomolecules, such as DNA and proteins. Even though CE is a rather good alternative to HPLC for the evaluation of the impurity profile and the enantiomeric purity of a drug, it is rarely applied. This might be due to the reservation of national licensing authorities and the pharmacopoeia commissions for several reasons. In this review containing some experimental data we report on several drug examples which demonstrate the superiority of CE over HPLC in special cases, i.e., in the analysis of antibiotics, amino acids and peptides, and the determination of enantiomeric purity. However, in order to make the CE techniques more suitable for pharmacopoeial purposes the general methods describing separation methods have to be complemented with the adjustment of the electrophoretic conditions being necessary to satisfy the system suitability criteria without fundamentally modifying the methods. Taken together CE should be more often applied in drug quality control.
Holzgrabe
Ulrike
U
Institute of Pharmacy and Food Chemistry, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany. u.holzgrabe@pharmazie.uni-wuerzburg.de
Brinz
Daniela
D
Kopec
Susanne
S
Weber
Christine
C
Bitar
Yaser
Y
D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; D004340:Drug Contamination; D019075:Electrophoresis, Capillary / Q000379:methods*; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations / Q000032:analysis*; D013237:Stereoisomerism
D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations