Investigation of anti-Hepatitis C virus, sofosbuvir and daclatasvir, in pure form, human plasma and human urine using micellar monolithic HPLC-UV method and application to pharmacokinetic study

Comparative study of four innovative earth-friendly platforms for rapid analysis of daclatasvir dihydrochloride: Application on different matrices

BACKGROUND

Daclatasvir dihydrochloride has important roles not only in the management of COVID-19 pandemic symptoms but also in the treatment of chronic hepatitis C infection.

OBJECTIVE

The current research presents four novel and simple platforms including silver-nanoparticles spectrophotometric technique and three electrochemical conductometric ones for daclatasvir analysis in its tablet, biological fluids, and dissolution media.

METHODS

The spectrophotometric platform involved the synthesis of silvernanoparticles through a redox reaction between the reducing agent (daclatasvir) and the oxidizing agent (silver nitrate) in presence of polyvinylpyrrolidone as a stabilizing agent. The produced silver-nanoparticles have an intense surface plasmon resonance peak at 421 nm where the measured absorbance values were utilized for quantitative spectrophotometric determination of daclatasvir. While the electrochemical conductometric platforms involved the reaction of daclatasvir with three different precipitating reagents (silver nitrate, phosphomolybdic acid, and ammonium reineckate) to form ion associates between these reagents and daclatasvir in the aqueous system.

RESULTS

All proposed platforms were validated in line with recommendations of the international conference on harmonization producing satisfactory outcomes within the agreed boundaries.

CONCLUSION

The proposed platforms are green alternatives for routine rapid assay of daclatasvir at the cheapest cost because their results were observed to be nearly similar to those of the reported platform. Moreover, the suggested spectrophotometric platform's sensitivity can be employed for investigating daclatasvir bioequivalence.

Analytical approaches for determination of COVID-19 candidate drugs in human biological matrices

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of antiviral and other available drugs has been considered to combat or reduce the clinical symptoms of patients. In this regard, it would be necessary to choose sensitive and selective analytical techniques for pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies, monitoring of drug concentration in biological fluids, and determination of the most appropriate dose to achieve the desired effect on the disease. In the present study, the analytical techniques based on spectroscopy and chromatography with different detectors for diagnosis and determination of candidate drugs in the treatment of COVID-19 in human biological fluids are reviewed during the period 2015-2022. Moreover, various sample preparation and extraction techniques, are being used for this purpose, such as protein precipitation (PP), solid-phase extraction (SPE), liquid-liquid extraction (LLE), and QuEChERS (quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe) are investigated.

Recent advances in the chromatographic determination of the most commonly used anti-hepatitis C drug sofosbuvir and its co-administered drugs in human plasma

Sofosbuvir is a direct-acting antiviral drug that inhibits hepatitis C virus (HCV) NS5B polymerase, which in turn affects the virus replication inside biological systems. The clinical importance of sofosbuvir is based not only on its effect on HCV but also on other lethal viruses such as Zika and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus disease 2019 (SARS-COVID-19). Accordingly, there is a continuous shedding of light on the development and validation of accurate and fast analytical methods for the determination of sofosbuvir in different environments. This work critically reviews the recent advances in chromatographic methods for the analysis of sofosbuvir and/or its metabolites in pure samples, pharmaceutical dosage forms, and in the presence of other co-administered drugs to highlight the current status and future perspectives to enhance its determination in different matrixes.

A Review on Analytical Strategies for the Assessment of Recently Approved Direct Acting Antiviral Drugs

Human beings are in dire need of developing an efficient treatment against fierce viruses like hepatitis C virus (HCV) and Coronavirus (COVID-19). These viruses have already caused the death of over two million people all over the world. Therefore, over the last years, many direct-acting antiviral drugs (DAADs) were developed targeting nonstructural proteins of these two viruses. Among these DAADs, several drugs were found more effective and safer than the others as sofosbuvir, ledipasvir, grazoprevir, glecaprevir, voxilaprevir, velpatasvir, elbasvir, pibrentasvir and remdesivir. The last one is indicated for COVID-19, while the rest are indicated for HCV treatment. Due to the valuable impact of these DAADs, larger number of analytical methods were required to meet the needs of the clinical studies. Therefore, this review will highlight the current approaches, published in the period between 2017 to present, dealing with the determination of these drugs in two different matrices: pharmaceuticals and biological fluids with the challenges of analyzing these drugs either alone, with other drugs, in presence of interferences (pharmaceutical excipients or endogenous plasma components) or in presence of matrix impurities, degradation products and metabolites. These approaches include spectroscopic, chromatographic, capillary electrophoretic, voltametric and nuclear magnetic resonance methods that have been reported during this period. Moreover, the analytical instrumentation and methods used in determination of these DAADs will be illustrated in tabulated forms.

Analytical Methods for Determination of Antiviral Drugs in Different Matrices: Recent Advances and Trends

Viruses are the main pathogenic substances that cause severe diseases in humans and other living things. They are among the most common microorganisms, and consequently, antiviral drugs have emerged to prevent and treat viral infections. Antiviral drugs are an essential drug group considering their prescription and consumption rates for different diseases and indications. Therefore, it is crucial to develop accurate and precise analytical methods to detect antiviral drugs in various matrices. Chromatographic techniques are used frequently for the quantification purpose since they allow simultaneous determination of antivirals. Electrochemical methods have also gained importance since the analysis can be performed quickly without the need for pretreatment. Spectrophotometric and spectrofluorimetric methods are used because they are simple, inexpensive, and less time-consuming methods. The purpose of this review is to present an overview of the analysis of currently used antiviral drugs from 2010 to 2021. Since studies on antiviral drugs are numerous, selected publications were reviewed in this article. The analysis of antiviral drugs was divided into three main groups: chromatographic, spectrometric, and electrochemical methods which were applied to different matrices, including pharmaceutical, biological, and environmental samples.

Improved spectral resolution for the rapid simultaneous spectrophotometric determination of sofosbuvir and daclatasvir as anti hepatitis C virus drugs in pharmaceutical formulation and biological fluid using continuous wavelet and derivative transform

In this study, the simultaneous spectrophotometric estimation of Sofosbuvir (SOF) and Daclatasvir (DAC) in synthetic mixtures and tablet formulation in the presence of overlapping spectra was performed based on continuous wavelet transform (CWT) and derivative spectrophotometry (DS) methods without any separation process. The Coiflet (Coif2) and Daubechies (Db3) wavelet families with wavelength of 256 nm and 218 nm were obtained as the best families for the simultaneous determination of SOF and DAC, respectively. Also, the first derivative absorption spectra revealed the best results corresponding to the analysis of SOF and DAC at 237 nm and 291 nm, respectively. The ranges of limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantitation (LOQ) related to the CWT and DS methods were 2.45 × 10^-3 to 0.5054 and 6.91 × 10^-3 to 0.6027, respectively. Mean recovery values of SOF and DAC in synthetic mixtures for CWT approach were 98.55%, 98.09% and in DS method were 98.78% and 95.83%, respectively. Real samples, including Sovodak tablet and urine was used for accurate simultaneous determination of the mentioned components. Analyzing Sovodak tablet was implemented using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) as a reference method that the results were near to the CWT and DS methods. In order to investigate the existence of significant differences between the methods, analysis of variance (ANOVA) test at the 95% confidence level was performed but no significant differences were observed. In addition, the amounts of SOF and DAC in the complex matrix of biological sample were well predicted by the proposed methods.

Development and validation of a versatile HPLC-DAD method for simultaneous determination of the antiviral drugs daclatasvir, ledipasvir, sofosbuvir and ribavirin in presence of seven potential impurities. Application to assay of dosage forms and dissolution studies

This study describes a simple, sensitive, specific and generic HPLC-DAD method for simultaneous determination of four drugs prescribed for treatment of Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) infection. Investigated drugs include daclatasvir (DAC), ledipasvir (LED), sofosbuvir (SOF) and ribavirin (RIB). Successful separation was accomplished using Thermohypersil BDS-C8 column (4.6 × 250 mm, 5 µm) with gradient elution of the mobile phase consisted of mixed phosphate buffer pH 7.5 and methanol. Gradient elution started with 25% methanol, ramped up linearly to 80% in 15 min then kept constant till the end of the run. Flow rate was 1.5 mL/min. Peak areas were measured at 235, 260, 315, and 332 nm for RIB, SOF, DAC, and LED, respectively. Peaks of the analytes were perfectly resolved with retention times 2.0, 12.1, 14.7, and 17.2 min for RIB, SOF, DAC, and LED, respectively. The developed method was validated according to ICH guidelines with respect to system suitability, linearity, ranges, accuracy, precision, specificity, robustness, and limits of detection and quantification. The proposed method showed good linearity in the ranges 5-500, 2-300, 0.5-75, and 0.5-75 µg/mL for RIB, SOF, DAC, and LED respectively. Limits of detection were 0.10-0.66 μg/mL for the analyzed drugs. Specificity was established by separation of target drugs from 7 process-related impurities for SOF including its major metabolite (GS-331007). Applicability of the proposed method to real life situations was assessed through the analysis of four different pharmaceutical formulations and satisfactory results were obtained. Additionally, dissolution profiles of the 4 drugs were studied using the developed method.

Development of a Robust UPLC Method for Simultaneous Determination of a Novel Combination of Sofosbuvir and Daclatasvir in Human Plasma: Clinical Application to Therapeutic Drug Monitoring

A rapid and selective UPLC-DAD method was developed and validated for simultaneous analysis of the novel two-drug combination Darvoni® for the treatment of HCV: Sofosbuvir (SF)/Daclatasvir (DC) in human plasma using Ledipasvir as internal standard (IS) where the extraction process was conducted using automated SPE. Although the analysis of the combination after concomitant oral intake of two tablets of SF and DC individually was reported in literature, yet simultaneous analysis of this new combination in human plasma after a single oral dose was not previously reported. The adopted chromatographic separation was achieved on Waters® Acquity UPLC BEH C₁₈ column (2.1 × 50 mm, 1.7 µm) as a stationary phase using isocratic elution using a mobile phase system of ammonium formate (pH 3.5; 5 mM) and acetonitrile (60:40 v/v) pumped at a flow rate of 0.2 mL.min⁻¹. The UV detection was carried out at 261 nm for SF and 318 nm for DC and IS. SF was eluted at 1.123 min while DC was eluted at 3.179 min. The proposed chromatographic method was validated in accordance with guidelines of FDA for bioanalytical method validation. A linear range was achieved in the range of 25-6400 and 50-12800 ng.mL⁻¹ for SF and DC, respectively. The proposed UPLC-DAD method was found to be accurate with % bias ranging between -10.0-7.2 for SF and -6.9-8.0 for DC. Also it was proved to be precise with % CV for intraday precision ranging between 3.8-9.6 for SF and 2.8-9.2 for DC whereas interday precision ranged between 5.1-9.3 for SF and 3.7-9.1 for DC. Moreover, % extraction recovery ranged between 90.0-107.2 for SF and 93.1-108.0 for DC using the suggested method. The adopted chromatographic method was successfully applied to the therapeutic drug monitoring of SF and DC in healthy volunteers after the oral intake of one Darvoni® tablet.