title: Characterization of impurities of HIV NNRTI Doravirine by UHPLC-high resolution MS and tandem MS analysis.
abstract: World Health Organization estimates that 34 million individuals globally are living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Doravirine is a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTI) being evaluated by Merck for the treatment of HIV-1 infection. Drug regulation authorities require the purity of a pharmaceutical to be fully defined. This is important to ensure that the pharmacological and toxicological effects are truly those of the drug substances and not because of the impurities. Thus, understanding the drug impurity profiles is critical to the safety and potency assessment of the drug candidate for clinical trials. The impurity characterization can also provide useful information for critical assessment of pharmaceutical processes. Advances in mass spectrometry instrumentation and methods allow the identification of impurities in pharmaceuticals with a minimum of sample material and increased sensitivity. In this study, a rapid and sensitive method was developed for the structural determination of the major impurities of doravirine. The study utilizes ultra performance liquid chromatography-high-resolution-tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-HRMS/MS) techniques to perform structure elucidation of the unknown structures. This approach has significant impact on impurity structural elucidation, and a total of five trace-level impurities of doravirine were characterized using the developed method. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
authors.affiliation: Process Research and Discovery, Merck Research Laboratories, Merck and Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, 07065, USA. li-kang.zhang@merck.com.
authors.forename: Li-Kang
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Process Research and Discovery, Merck Research Laboratories, Merck and Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, 07065, USA.
authors.forename: Ross
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Process Research and Discovery, Merck Research Laboratories, Merck and Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, 07065, USA.
authors.forename: Huaming
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sheng
authors.affiliation: Process Research and Discovery, Merck Research Laboratories, Merck and Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, 07065, USA.
authors.forename: Roy
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Helmy
authors.affiliation: Process Research and Discovery, Merck Research Laboratories, Merck and Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, 07065, USA.
authors.forename: Jinjian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: Process Research and Discovery, Merck Research Laboratories, Merck and Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, 07065, USA.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: Process Research and Discovery, Merck Research Laboratories, Merck and Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, 07065, USA.
authors.forename: Donald R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Gauthier
mesh_terms: D019380:Anti-HIV Agents / Q000032:analysis*; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; D004340:Drug Contamination; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000188:drug therapy; D006801:Humans; D015394:Molecular Structure; D011728:Pyridones / Q000032:analysis*; D018894:Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors / Q000032:analysis*; D021241:Spectrometry, Mass, Electrospray Ionization; D053719:Tandem Mass Spectrometry; D014230:Triazoles / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D019380:Anti-HIV Agents; D011728:Pyridones; D018894:Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors; D014230:Triazoles; C000592662:doravirine
keywords: HIV NNRTI Doravirine; Q-Tof; UHPLC-MSMS; fragmentation mechanism; high-resolution MS; impurity characterization; tandem MS; trace-level impurity