Extension of the liquid chromatography/quantitative structure–property relationship method to assess the lipophilicity of neutral, acidic, basic and amphotheric drugs

A reported chromatographic method to determine the 1-octanol/water partition coefficient (log Po/w) has been used to estimate the lipophilicity of 33 drugs with diverse structures and functionalities, including neutral, acid, basic, and amphoteric compounds. The applicability of the chromatographic method has been extended to the UHPLC technique, and the results obtained were compared to those obtained from conventional HPLC. No significant difference between the results obtained by both techniques is noticed. Thus, the suitability of UHPLC, which involves shorter run times, for lipophilicity assessment is demonstrated. In order to show the consistency of this chromatographic method, the log Po/w values of those drugs which have acid–base properties have been also determined by potentiometry, and the final results have been compared with both values derived from the chromatographic method and the ones from the literature.

► A chromatographic method (HPLC or UHPLC) is used to obtain the log Po/w of drugs.
► No difference between log Po/w obtained from HPLC or UHPLC is noticed.
► These drugs show a wide range of log Po/w values (0–7) and functionalities.
► The results obtained agree with literature and potentiometric log Po/w values.