Rapid, simultaneous determination of lopinavir and ritonavir in human plasma by stacking protein precipitations and salting-out assisted liquid/liquid extraction, and ultrafast LC–MS/MS

Lopinavir and ritonavir are co-formulated in Kaletra® approved for the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus infection. A validated analytical method is mandatory for clinical development and therapeutic drug monitoring. Here we are reporting a method for rapid, simultaneous determination of lopinavir and ritonavir in human plasma with stacked protein precipitations and salting-out assisted extraction (SALLE), and ultrafast LC–MS/MS detection. With stacked protein precipitations and SALLE, the sample preparation for a 96-well plate can be completed within 20 min by an automated pipette. Due to the unique cleanliness of SALLE extracts post double protein precipitations, the extracts were injected into an ultrafast liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry system (LC–MS/MS) after simple dilution. An Agilent Zobax Extend-C18 Rapid resolution HT column (1.8 μm, 2.1 mm × 30 mm) was used for the separation. A mixture of acetonitrile:water (55:45, v/v) with 0.1% formic acid was used as the mobile phase. LC ran for approximately 48 s at a flow rate of 0.5 mL min−1, tandem mass spectrometric data collection started at 15 s and lasts for 30 s. The method was validated with reference to Industry Guidance for Bioanalytical Method Validation and then used for clinical samples. The method is ultrafast, and robust. Results of incurred samples demonstrated excellent method of reproducibility. This ultrafast analysis speed did not compromise with the data quality. To our knowledge, this is the fastest analytical method for simultaneous determination of lopinavir and ritonavir.