Quantitative analysis of mebendazole polymorphs in pharmaceutical raw materials using near-infrared spectroscopy

This work evaluates the feasibility of using NIR spectroscopy for quantification of three polymorphs of mebendazole (MBZ) in pharmaceutical raw materials. Thirty ternary mixtures of polymorphic forms of MBZ were prepared, varying the content of forms A and C from 0 to 100% (w/w), and for form B from 0 to 30% (w/w). Reflectance NIR spectra were used to develop partial least square (PLS) regression models using all spectral variables and the variables with significant regression coefficients selected by the Jack-Knife algorithm (PLS/JK). MBZ polymorphs were quantified with RMSEP values of 2.37% w/w, 1.23% w/w and 1.48% w/w for polymorphs A, B and C, respectively. This is an easy, fast and feasible method for monitoring the quality of raw pharmaceutical materials of MBZ according to polymorph purity.