Spectrophotometric determination of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme-A reductase inhibitors in pharmaceutical preparations

Abstract

Simple and accurate spectrophotometric methods are presented for the determination of five 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme-A (HMG-CoA) reductase inhibitors (statins), namely atorvastatin, fluvastatin, pitavastatin, rosuvastatin, and simvastatin, in pharmaceutical preparations. The methods are based on the reaction of drugs as n-electron donor with 7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane as \pi-acceptors to give highly colored complex species. All variables were studied in order to optimize the reaction conditions. Beer's law was obeyed in the concentration ranges 4--20 \mu g mL^{-1}, 4--12 \mu g mL^{-1}, 0.8--2.4 \mu g mL^{-1}, 4--14 \mu g mL^{-1}, and 2.5--20 \mu g mL^{-1} for atorvastatin, fluvastatin, pitavastatin, rosuvastatin, and simvastatin, respectively. The proposed methods were successfully applied to the pharmaceutical preparations without any interference from excipients.