Development of a high performance size exclusion chromatography method to determine the stability of Human Serum Albumin in a lyophilized formulation of Interferon alfa-2b

Intron Powder for Injection is a lyophilized formulation of Interferon alfa-2b marketed for treatment of Hepatitis C and some cancer indications. Human Serum Albumin (HSA) is used as a lyoprotectant and cryoprotectant at 1.0 mg/mL in the product formulation. No stability-indicating method, which can quantitate HSA and its dimer or oligomer aggregates in the formulated product, has been published to date. This paper describes the development and validation of a stability-indicating high performance size exclusion chromatography (HPSEC) method for the assay of HSA and estimation of HSA related compounds in lyophilized Intron Powder for Injection. The method employs a YMC-Pack Diol-200 (R) column (7.8 mm x 30 cm, 5 mu m porous particles with 250 angstrom pore size), UV detection at 214 nm, and a mobile phase of 0.1 M phosphate buffer at pH 7.0 with 0.1 M sodium sulfate. The mobiles phase runs in an isocratic mode at 1.0 mL/min and the total chromatographic run time is 30 min. The method was validated for specific, linearity, accuracy, sensitivity, and robustness. It was shown to be specific for HSA and HSA aggregates (dimer and oligomers) with a limit of quantitation of 0.0005 mg/mL or 0.05% of HSA label claim in the presence of active therapeutic protein, Interferon alfa-2b, and the other pharmaceutical excipients, glycine, sodium phosphate dibasic, sodium phosphate monobasic. The method is stability indicating and is suitable for assay of HSA from 0.0005 mg/mL to 1.5 mg/mL. (0.05-150% of HSA label claim) and for estimation of HSA related aggregates (dimer, and oligomer) from 0.0005 mg/mL to 0.15 mg/mL (0.05-15% of HSA label claim). The method is robust for routine use in product quality control. The method was applied to the analysis of batches of lyophilized Intron Powder for Injection of low, middle and high strength from the beginning, middle and end of shelf-life. The results indicated that HSA is stable in the product through out its shelf-life. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.