Chiral high performance liquid chromatography of drug molecules

The individual enantiomers of racemic drugs frequently differ in their biological effects. For pharmacological studies of such drugs there is therefore a need for an effective means of separating and quantifying the enantiomers in biological samples. As their physicochemical properties are similar, the assay of enantiomers is generally regarded as difficult, time-consuming and error-prone. However, recent developments in high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) chiral stationary phase technology overcome some of these problems and provide a more efficient and reliable way of assaying enantiomeric drugs.