Development and validation of UV-spectrophotometric method for the estimation of curcumin in standardised polyherbal formulations

Abstract

Objective: We aimed to develop and validate a simple UV-spectrophotometric method relates to the estimation of curcumin in standardised polyherbal formulations. Methods: Pure curcumin was received as generous gift sample from Andhra University, India, all solvents and reagents of analytical reagent (AR) grade were procured from local suppliers and readily used for the method development. The method validation parameters were evaluated as per International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) guidelines. Further, this method was applied for the assay of curcumin in marketed product Live-well™, CUMIN (standardised turmeric extract (STE) fortified with standardised black pepper (SBE) extract) capsules using UV-spectrophotometric method. Results and Discussion: It was confirmed from the results of method validation characteristics such as specificity, linearity, range, precision, accuracy, and robustness were keeping within the limits of acceptance criteria defined under ICH guidelines, 76.0560% of curcumin was estimated to be present in each Live-well™, CUMIN capsule containing a minimum 95% of the total curcuminoids (label claimed). Conclusion: In summary, our method was found to be reliable in detecting the unknown percentage of curcumin in Live-well™, CUMIN capsule formulation. Also, the method was proved to be specific, linear, precise, accurate and robust to use for routine analysis of polyherbal formulations containing curcumin as their principal component in the extracts.