Liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry method for quantitative determination of pioglitazone and its metabolite 5-hydroxy pioglitazone in human plasma.

A liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) based method was developed for the simultaneous estimation of pioglitazone and its active metabolites in human plasma for applicability to pharmacokinetic studies. The chromatographic separation was carried on the reversed phase Peerless Basic C18, column (100×4.6mm, 5μm) at column temperature of 40°C using a binary mobile phase consisting of methanol: 5mM ammonium acetate in 0.