Determination of neomycin sulfate and impurities using high-performance anion-exchange chromatography with integrated pulsed amperometric detection

Neomycin B is one of a class of aminoglycoside antibiotics that lack a good chromophore, and is therefore difficult to determine using reversed-phase HPLC with absorbance detection. This is especially true for determining the quantity of each impurity. We show that neomycin sulfate and its major impurities, including neamine (neomycin A), can be separated on a strong anion-exchange column using a weak potassium hydroxide eluent (2.40 mM) at a column temperature of 30 °C, and directly detected by integrated pulsed amperometric detection (IPAD). The resolution (United States Pharmacopeia (USP) definition) between neomycin B and the closest major impurity ranged from 6.56 and 7.45 over 10 days of consecutive analysis (7.24 ± 0.10, n = 836 injections). Due to the difficulty of producing weak hydroxide eluents of the required purity (i.e. carbonate-free), this method depends on automatic eluent generation to ensure method ruggedness. This method exhibited good long-term (10 days, 822 injections) retention time stability with a R.S.D. of 0.6%. Peak area R.S.D. (10 μM) was 1.3%. Method robustness was evaluated by intentionally varying the flow rate, eluent concentration, column temperature, and column. The spike recoveries of neomycin B from extractions of three different topical ointments and cream formulations ranged from 95 to 100%. The measured concentration of neomycin B in these formulations ranged from 119 to 154% of the label concentration. The R.S.D. for the measured concentration of one of the formulations tested over three separate days, n = 11 extracts, was 3.2%. Based on the results of these evaluations, we believe this method can be used for neomycin sulfate identity, assay, and purity.