A green HPLC method for the determination of apixaban in pharmaceutical products: Development and validation

Abstract Apixaban (APX) is a novel anticoagulant drug used in the treatment of ischemic stroke and venous thromboembolism. In this study, two different chromatographic methods were developed for the determination of APX in pharmaceutical products. In the first method, an Agilent C18 column (250 mm × 4.6 mm, 5 μm) was used, and the temperature was kept constant at 30°C. The mobile phase was chosen to be 0.1% trifluoroacetic acid solution and acetonitrile (65:35, v/v), and isocratic elution was applied. The flow rate of the mobile phase was found to be 1.0 mL·min−1 and the injection volume was 20 µL. The detection was carried out at a wavelength of 276 nm using a UV detector. In the second method, ethanol was used as an organic modifier. The only difference between these methods was the organic modifier. All other conditions of the methods were the same. Both chromatographic methods were validated in accordance with ICH guidelines for various parameters such as selectivity, linearity, accuracy, precision, detection and quantification limit, and robustness. The determination coefficients of chromatographic methods were greater than 0.999 in the concentration range of 5–30 mg·mL−1 of APX. Later, these chromatographic methods were applied to tablet formulations. Comparison of the obtained results in terms of mean was made using Student’s (t) test, and comparisons in terms of standard deviations were made using the Fisher (F) test. It was observed that there was no significant difference between these methods. These two methods were then evaluated using AGREE-Analytical greenness metric software. The chromatographic method using ethanol as an organic modifier has been proposed as an excellent eco-friendly and analyst-friendly alternative for the determination of APX in pharmaceutical formulations. Graphical abstract