Harmonizing drug analysis and sustainability: Spectroscopic quantification of antiplatelet-anticoagulant regimens

One of the most commonly prescribed medications are antithrombotic agents which consisting of antiplatelet and anticoagulant medications. Currently, millions of patients rely on them to avoid blood-clot-related issues across various cardiovascular diseases. The combined administration of apixaban, aspirin and clopidogrel is an example of this therapy which can be used for the risk reduction in cardiovascular death. The importance of such medications encourages us to investigate novel analytical assay methods for determination of such drugs in dosage forms as well as in human plasma. Spectroscopic technique was the best choice to design new analytical methods due to its applicability and simplicity. Three spectroscopic methods were introduced for concurrent determination of apixaban, aspirin and clopidogrel. The designed methods were; A direct measurement for determination of apixaban without interference from the other two drugs (method I), Ratio spectra (method II) and first derivative ratio spectra (method III). The first method enables us to determine apixaban through direct measurement of its absorption spectrum at 310 nm with no reading from aspirin or clopidogrel. Ratio spectra method (method II) was performed at ΔP = 223.6–245.2 nm for aspirin, ΔP = 293.2–307.0 nm for apixaban and ΔP = 251.0–260.0 nm for clopidogrel. The third first derivative ratio spectra method was based on measuring apixaban at 255 nm, aspirin at 242 nm and clopidogrel at 260 nm using the other two analytes as a double divisor. The linearity of the designed methods was 0.5–18 μg/mL for apixaban by the three methods while were 2.0–28 μg/mL for both aspirin and clopidogrel by method II & III. These developed approaches were effectively applied for estimation of the three studied drugs in their raw materials, synthetic mixtures and dosage forms simultaneously. The co-administration of these treatments enables us to extend the application for determination of them in spiked human plasma without complicated procedures. The applied methods were validated following the ICH Q2(R1) guidelines. The greenness of the designed methods was evaluated using six different tools including; Analytical Eco-scale, GAPI, AGREE metrics, NEMI, whiteness and blueness assessment.