Validated stability-indicating liquid chromatographic method for the determination of ribavirin in the presence of its degradation products: application to degradation kinetics.

Ribavirin was found to be liable to acidic, alkaline, oxidative and photolytic degradation. Hence, a simple, sensitive and stability-indicating reversed-phase liquid chromatographic method was developed and validated for the determination of ribavirin in the presence of its degradation products. The analysis was carried out on an ODS C18 (250 × 4.6 mm i.d.) stainless steel column using a mobile phase consisting of 0.02 M potassium dihydrogen phosphate. The analysis was performed at ambient temperature with a flow rate of 1 mL/min and UV detection at 207 nm. Pyridoxine hydrochloride was used as an internal standard. The method showed good linearity over the concentration range of 2.0-40 µg/mL with limit of detection of 0.34 µg/mL and limit of quantification of 1.03 µg/mL. The suggested method was successfully applied for the analysis of ribavirin in its commercial capsules. Statistical evaluation and comparison of the data obtained by the proposed and comparison method revealed good accuracy and precision of the proposed method. The drug was exposed to forced alkaline, acidic, oxidative and photolytic degradation according to the ICH guidelines. Moreover, the method was utilized to investigate the kinetics of alkaline and acidic degradation of the drug. The apparent first-order rate constants, half-life times and activation energies of the degradation process were calculated.