Development of LC Method for the Simultaneous Determination of Antidepressant Drug Combination Melitracen Hydrochloride and Flupentixol Dihydrochloride in their Combined Dosage Form

Abstract

A simple, specific and stability-indicating reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic method was developed for the simultaneous determination of melitracen hydrochloride and flupentixol dihydrochloride in tablet dosage form. A Brownlee C-18, 5 μm column having 250 × 4.6 mm i.d. in isocratic mode, with mobile phase containing 0.025 M potassium dihydrogen phosphate: methanol (10 : 90, v/v; pH 7.3) was used. The flow rate was 1.0 mL/min, and effluents were monitored at 230 nm. The retention times of melitracen hydrochloride and flupentixol dihydrochloride were 7.75 min and 5.50 min, respectively. The linearity for melitracen hydrochloride and flupentixol dihydrochloride were in the range of 0.5–60 μg/mL. The recoveries obtained for melitracen hydrochloride and flupenthixol dihydrochloride was 99.81–100.77% and 99.42–100.12%, respectively. Both the drugs were subjected to acid and alkali hydrolysis, chemical oxidation, and dry heat degradation and photodegradation. The proposed method was validated and successfully applied to the estimation of melitracen hydrochloride and flupentixol dihydrochloride in combined tablet dosage form.