LC and LC-HRMS studies on stability behavior of molnupiravir an anti-COVID 19 drug
Sonali Jain, Shivraj Giri, Nitish Sharma, Ravi P. Shah
Abstract
Molnupiravir is a recently approved drug against the ongoing worldwide pandemic of COVID-19. The current study endeavors to identify and characterize the degradation products of molnupiravir using LC-MS/MS for rapid drug development. The HPLC separation was achieved using Waters Xselect HSS T3 (75 × 4.6 mm, 2.5 µm) column with ammonium formate and ACN as mobile phase in gradient elution mode. The injection volume was 5 µL with 0.7 mL/min flow rate. The detection wavelength was 272 nm and all the study was performed at a constant column temperature of 25 °C. MS/MS study of molnupiravir and its DPs was performed at optimized mass parameters and in total four DPs were identified and characterized. The mechanistic pathway of formation of all DPs from molnupiravir is established. Online web server Pro Tox II was used to predict the in-silico safety profile of DPs in comparison to the drug.