Liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry validated method for the simultaneous quantification of sibutramine and its primary and secondary amine metabolites in human plasma and its application to a bioequivalence study.

A high-throughput and sensitive bioanalytical method using liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (LC/ESI-MS/MS) has been developed for the estimation of sibutramine and its two metabolites (M1 and M2). The extraction of sibutramine, its metabolites and imipramine (internal standard (IS)) from the plasma involved treatment with phosphoric acid followed by solid-phase extraction (SPE) using a hydrophilic-lipophilic balanced HLB cartridge. The SPE eluate without drying and reconstitution was analyzed by LC/MS/MS, equipped with a with turbo ion spray (TIS) source, operating in the positive and multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) acquisition mode. Sample preparation by this method yielded extremely clean extracts with quantitative and consistent mean recoveries; 95.12% for sibutramine, 92.74% for M1, 95.97% for M2 and 96.60% for the IS. The total chromatographic run time was 3.0 min with retention times of 2.51, 2.13, 2.09 min for sibutramine, M1, M2 and imipramine, respectively. The developed method was validated in human plasma matrix, with a sensitivity of 0.1 ng/mL (coefficient of variance (CV), 2.07%) for sibutramine, 0.1 ng/mL (CV, 3.59%) for M1 and 0.2 ng/mL (CV, 4.93%) for M2. Validation of the method for its accuracy, precision, recovery, matrix effect and stability was carried out especially with regard to real subject sample analysis. The response was linear over the dynamic range 0.1 to 8.0 ng/mL for sibutramine and M1, and 0.2 to 16.0 ng/mL for M2 with correlation coefficients of r > or = 0.9959 (sibutramine), 0.9935 (M1) and 0.9943 (M2). The method was successfully applied for bioequivalence studies in 40 human subjects with 15 mg capsule formulations.