Determination of polysorbate 80 in parenteral formulations by high-performance liquid chromatography and evaporative light scattering detection

Drugs that are not very soluble in aqueous formulations are solubilized with surfactants such as polysorbate 80. In order to evaluate the stability of excipient such as polysorbate 80 in drug formulation, a rapid chromatographic methodology is desired; however, polysorbate 80 does not have a strong chromophore for monitoring by absorption spectrometry. A simple and fast method for the analysis of polysorbate 80 in pharmaceutical formulations was developed using high-performance liquid chromatography with evaporative light scattering detection (ELSD). Separation of polysorbate 80 as a single peak was achieved on a C18 column using a methanol/water gradient mobile phase and ELS detection. The method is specific for polysorbate 80 in the formulation as there were no interferences from the drug or other excipients. Precision, recovery, linearity and limit of quantitation/detection experiments gave acceptable results during the evaluation of the method.