High-performance liquid chromatography method with ultraviolet detection for the quantification of the BCR-ABL inhibitor nilotinib (AMN107) in plasma, urine, culture medium and cell preparations

An isocratic and sensitive HPLC assay was developed allowing the determination of the new anticancer drug nilotinib (AMN107) in human plasma, urine, culture medium and cell samples. After protein precipitation with perchloric acid, AMN107 underwent an online enrichment using a Zirchrom-PBD precolumn, was separated on a Macherey-Nagel C18-HD column and finally quantified by UV-detection at 258 nm. The total run time is 25 min. The assay demonstrates linearity within a concentration range of 0.005–5.0 μg/ml in plasma (r2 = 0.9998) and 0.1–10.0 μg/ml in urine (r2 = 0.9913). The intra-day precision expressed as coefficients of variation ranged depending on the spiked concentration between 1.27–9.23% in plasma and 1.77–3.29% in urine, respectively. The coefficients of variation of inter-day precision was lower than 10%. Limit of detection was 0.002 μg/ml in plasma and 0.01 μg/ml in urine. The described method is stable, simple, economic and is routinely used for in vivo and in vitro pharmacokinetic studies of AMN107.