Novel LC- ESI-MS/MS method for desvenlafaxine estimation human plasma: application to pharmacokinetic study

A simple, sensitive and specific liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS) method was developed for the quantification of desvenlafaxine in human plasma using desvenlafaxine d6 as an internal standard (IS). Chromatographic separation was performed using a Thermo-BDS hypersil C8 column (50 × 4.6 mm, 3 µm) with an isocratic mobile phase composed of 5 mM ammonium acetate buffer: methanol (20:80, v/v), at a flow rate of 0.80 mL/min. Desvenlafaxine and desvenlafaxine d6 were detected with proton adducts at m/z 264.2/58.1 and 270.2/ 64.1 in multiple reaction monitoring positive mode, respectively. Liquid-liquid extraction was used to extract the drug and the IS. The method was linear over the concentration range 1.001-400.352 ng/mL with a correlation coefficient of ≥0.9994. This method demonstrated intra and inter-day precision within 0.7-5.5 and 1.9-6.8%, and accuracy within 95.3-107.4 and 93.4-99.5%. Desvenlafaxine was found to be stable throughout the freeze-thaw cycles, bench-top and long-term matrix stability studies. The developed and validated method can be successfully applied for the bioequivalence/pharmacokinetic studies of desvenlafaxine in pharmaceutical dosage forms.