Isolation and characterization of degradation impurities in epirubicin hydrochloride injection

The degradation of epirubicin hydrochloride aqueous formulation has been investigated during stability study. Some unknown degradation impurities were detected and out of these, three were characterized. These degradation impurities were isolated, enriched and were subjected to mass and NMR spectral studies. Based on the spectral data these were characterized as epirubicin dimer (impurity-1), 4-(4-amino-5-hydroxy-6-methyl-tetrahydro-pyran-2-yloxy)-2,5,12-trihydroxy-7-methoxy-6,11-dioxo-1,2,3,4,6,11-hexahydro-naphthacene-2-carboxylic acid hydroxymethyl ester (impurity-3) and 4-(4-amino-5-hydroxy-6-methyl-tetrahydro-pyran-2-yloxy)-2,5,12-trihydroxy-7-methoxy-6,11-dioxo-1,2,3,4,6,11-hexahydro-naphthacene-2-carboxylic acid (impurity-4). Structure elucidations of these degradation impurities are discussed in detail. Out of these degradation impurities, epirubicin dimer (impurity-1) has been previously identified while the other two impurity-3 and impurity-4 were previously unreported.