Method development for simultaneous separation and identification of different therapeutic drugs by humic acid-based high performance liquid chromatographic column

Simultaneous quantitative and qualitative identification of drugs is an increasing demand by pharmaceutical industries. Present study deals with development of efficient, reliable and simultaneous separation of five drugs belonging to different therapeutic groups (i.e., Ornidazole (anti-bacterial/anti-fungal), Oxaprozin (anti-inflammatory), Fusidic acid (antibiotic), Pantoprazole and Omeprazole (acid reducers)) as first application by a newly developed humic acid appended aminopropyl silica filled chromatographic column. The extracted soil humic acid was immobilized on aminopropyl silica by amide bond formation. The material was characterized by fourier-transform infrared and scanning electron microscopic techniques. The separation method was developed by varying mobile phase composition, pH and flow rate, resulting optimum conditions were found to be 30% acetonitrile, 5.5 pH at 1 mL/min flow rate. Method was validated according to ICH guidelines. The results suggested higher accuracy, reproducibility, and linearity of column. Moreover, satisfactory values for limit of detection and limit of quantification justified the sensitivity of developed column. The column was successfully applied for determination of each drug in their commercial formulations. Finally, the efficiency of developed column was also compared with commercially available column. The results revealed that developed column is suitable for quality control and routine analysis of the cited drugs in their pharmaceutical dosage form.