Development and validation of a liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometric assay for pitavastatin and its lactone in human plasma and urine

A rapid, selective and sensitive liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) method with electrospray ionization (ESI) was developed and validated for the simultaneous determination of pitavastatin and its lactone in human plasma and urine. Following a liquid–liquid extraction, both the analytes and internal standard racemic i-prolact were separated on a BDS Hypersil C8 column, using methanol–0.2% acetic acid in water (70: 30, v/v) as the mobile phase. The mass spectrometer was operated in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode using the transition m/z 422.4 → m/z 290.3 for pitavastatin, m/z 404.3 → m/z 290.3 for pitavastatin lactone and m/z 406.3 → m/z 318.3 for the internal standard, respectively. Linear calibration curves of pitavastatin and its lactone were obtained in the concentration range of 1–200 ng/ml, with a lower limit of quantitation of 1 ng/ml. The intra- and inter-day precision values were less than 4.2%, and accuracies were between −8.1 and 3.5% for both analytes. The proposed method was utilized to support clinical pharmacokinetic studies of pitavastatin in healthy subjects following oral administration.