Forced degradation studies on Naratriptan HCL by High Performance Liquid Chromatography.

Naratriptan HCL is Anti Migraine Drug, the forced degradation studies of Naratriptan HCL were performed under acidic, basic, neutral, photolytic, and dry heat by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). The drug was found to be unstable in alkaline medium as well as acidic medium compared to neutral conditions. The drug showed degradation in 8 hr at 60ºC when the studies were carried under 0.01N NaOH, while drug showed the degradation in 0.01N HCL when it was subjected to reflux for 2 hours at 60º C. Same retention time of degradant was also observed in neutral conditions, when drug was allowed to reflux in water for 8 hours at 100º C. Drug was found to be stable in 50% H2O2. Drug was also found to be stable in other conditions such as photolytic and dry heat. Suitable mobile phase was developed and separation of drug and degradant was achieved using isocratic elution. The method was developed on C-18 column using acetonitrile : water as a mobile phase in the ratio of 50:50, 100 µl of the sample were injected in the system for chromatographic Analysis,  the selected wavelength was 223 nm and flow rate was 1ml/min.