Quantitative determination of pioglitazone in human serum by direct-injection high-performance liquid chromatography mass spectrometry and its application to a bioequivalence study

A simple, high throughput, direct-injection high-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method (LC/MS/MS) has been developed and validated for the quantitation of pioglitazone in human serum. After mixing the internal standard with a sample, a 10 μl portion of the mixture was directly injected into a high-flow LC/MS/MS system, which included an extraction column, an analytical column and a six-port switching valve. The on-line extraction was achieved on an Oasis® HLB column (1 mm×50 mm, 30 μm) with a 100% aqueous loading mobile phase containing 5 mM ammonium acetate (pH 4.0) at a flow rate of 4 ml/min. The extracted analyte was eluted by a mobile phase which contained 5 mM ammonium acetate and acetonitrile. The analytical column was a Luna C18 column (4.6 mm×50 mm, 5 μm). Detection was achieved by positive ion electrospray tandem mass spectrometry. The lower limit of quantitation of the method was 9 ng/ml. The standard curve, which ranged from 9 to 1350 ng/ml, was fitted by a weighted (1/x2) quadratic regression model. The validation results demonstrated that this method had satisfactory precision and accuracy across the calibration range. There was no evidence of instability of the analyte in human serum following three freeze-thaw cycles, and samples could be stored for at least 2 weeks at −30 °C. This method was used to analyze pioglitazone concentrations in human serum samples from a bioequivalence study of a blinded Actos® formulation (encapsulated 15 mg tablet) and an Actos® 15 mg tablet. The blinded formulation was shown to be bioequivalent to an Actos® 15 mg tablet.