Stability-Indicating Method and LC-MS-MS Characterization of Forced Degradation Products of Sofosbuvir

Sofosbuvir is a novel direct acting antiviral agent against hepatitis C virus. In the present work, a rapid, specific and reproducible isocratic reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) method has been developed and validated for the determination of sofosbuvir in the presence of its stressed degradation products. Sobosbuvir was subjected to hydrolysis (acidic, alkaline and neutral), oxidation, photolysis and thermal stress, as per international conference on harmonization (ICH) conditions. The drug showed degradation under oxidative, photolysis, acid and base hydrolysis stress conditions. However, it was stable under thermal and neutral hydrolysis stress conditions. Chromatographic separation of the drug from its degradation products was performed on Inertsil ODS-3 C18 (250 mm × 4.6 mm i.d., 5 µm) column using a green mobile phase of methanol:water 70:30 (v/v). The degradation products were characterized by LC-MS-MS and the fragmentation pathways were proposed. The developed method was validated as per ICH guidelines. No previous method was reported regarding the degradation behavior of sofosbuvir.