FORMULATION DEVELOPMENT AND STABILITY INDICATING HPLC ASSAY OF TABLETS OF APIXABAN

Objective: Cost effective formulation development and stability indicating HPLC method for estimation of apixaban in bulk and tablets dosage form.Methods: 32 factorial design was applied to formulate the immediate release tablets of apixaban by using direct compression method. The chromatographic separation was performed on Purospher Star RP-18e (5 µm, 250x4, 6 mm) column and a stability indicating assay method was developed by using HPLC. The mobile phase consists of water: acetonitrile (60:40 v/v) was delivered at a flow rate of 1 ml/min and UV detection at 280 nm. The method was validated with forced degradation studies as per ICH guidelines.Results: Prepared batches were evaluated for all pre-compression parameters and post-compression parameters. Formulation batch F5 prepared by direct compression shows highest dissolution release of 90.97 % over the period of 60 min while disintegration time was found to be 136 seconds. The retention time of developed HPLC method was found to be 5.66 min. This method was found to be linear in a concentration range of 5-30 μg/ml of the drug (r2= 0.999). The low value of % RSD in the precision study indicates reproducibility of the method. The low value of LOD and LOQ suggests the sensitivity of the method. The results of forced degradation studies indicated that the drug was less stable in thermal and photolytic condition and degraded in acidic, basic, oxidative conditions.Conclusion: On the basis of formulation evaluation, batch F5 was found to be promising formulation suitable for the immediate release of apixaban. Results obtained by validation studies suggested that the developed stability indicating assay method is simple, accurate, specific, sensitive and precise. Thus, this method can be used for routine analysis of apixaban formulation and to check the stability testing.Â