Enantiomeric separation of norgestrel by reversed phase high-performance liquid chromatography using eluents containing hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin in stereoselective skin permeation study

Abstract The chiral separation of norgestrel enantiomers using reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) was studied with hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin (HP-beta-CD) as chiral mobile phase additive. The effect of mobile phase composition, concentration of HP-beta-CD and column temperature on enantioselective separation were investigated. The quantification properties of the developed RP-HPLC method were examined. A baseline separation of norgestrel enantiomers was achieved on a Agilent ZORBAX Eclipse XDB-C8 column (150 mm × 4.6 mm i.d., 5 μm). The mobile phase was a mixture of acetonitrile and phosphate buffer (pH 5.0, 20 mM) containing 25 mM HP-beta-CD (30:70, v/v) with a flow rate of 1.0 ml/min. The UV detector was set at 240 nm. Calibration curves were linear ( n  = 8) in the range of 0.2–25 μg/ml, the limit of detection and quantitation were 0.10 and 0.20 μg/ml, respectively, for racemic norgestrel. The values of RSD of repeatability and intermediate precision for spiked sample were less than 4.8%. The method was successfully applied to the enantioselective determination of this drug in stereoselective skin permeation study.