PHARMACEUTICAL FORMULATION MANUFACTURER DISCRIMINATION BY INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY AND PRINCIPAL COMPONENT ANALYSIS

In the present work Fournier transform infrared (IR) spectroscopy in association with chemometric technique was employed to identify kind of tablet formulations containing paracetamol and/or caffeine as active pharmaceutical ingredients. 13 samples of 5 commercially available brand tablets of different manufacturers and batches were bayed in local pharmacies. IR spectra of samples were recorded in the range 600—4000 cm-1 and subjected to and principal component analysis (PCA) which allowed to clearly identify 5 clusters in the scores plot using the third and the second principal components, corresponding to the brands of tablets. For Paracetamol and Caffeine-sodium benzoate tablets the combination of IR spectroscopy and PCA was able to recognize the manufacturer on the basis of distance between samples in clusters in the PCA scores plot.