Quantitation of active pharmaceutical ingredients and excipients in powder blends using designed multivariate calibration models by near-infrared spectroscopy

This research note demonstrates the simultaneous quantitation of a pharmaceutical active ingredient and three excipients in a simulated powder blend containing acetaminophen, Prosolv® and Crospovidone. An experimental design approach was used in generating a 5-level (%, w/w) calibration sample set that included 125 samples. The samples were prepared by weighing suitable amount of powders into separate 20-mL scintillation vials and were mixed manually. Partial least squares (PLS) regression was used in calibration model development. The models generated accurate results for quantitation of Crospovidone (at 5%, w/w) and magnesium stearate (at 0.5%, w/w). Further testing of the models demonstrated that the 2-level models were as effective as the 5-level ones, which reduced the calibration sample number to 50. The models had a small bias for quantitation of acetaminophen (at 30%, w/w) and Prosolv® (at 64.5%, w/w) in the blend. The implication of the bias is discussed.