A New Stability Indicating Validated RP-HPLC Method for Simultaneous Estimation of Escitalopram and Clonazepam in Bulk and Tablet Dosage Form

Present research work describes sensitive, accurate, validated and welldefined stability-indicating RP-HPLC method for the determination of escitalopram (ESC) and clonazepam (CLNZ) in bulk and tablet dosage forms. Chromatographic separation was achieved on a C18 column using mobile phase of a mixture of phosphate buffer and acetonitrile (55: 45 v/v), pH 5.8 with a detection of 231nm. The retention times for Escitalopram and Clonazepam were found to be as 2.01 min, 4.85 min respectively. Linearity was observed in the range 1–200 μg/mL for escitalopram (R²=0.998) and 1.5–150μg/mL for clonazepam (R² =0.998). The LOD and LOQ were found 1.63 and 3.130μg/mL for ESC whereas 0.099.and 0.301 μg/mL for CLNZ. The drugs under study has been subjected to several stress conditions like acid, alkali, Photolytic, thermal, oxidative conditions and both the drugs are found stable in photolytic, oxidative and thermal conditions but degradation has occurred in acidic and alkaline conditions. Along with this, the method was found to have enough percentage recovery 98.4fr ESC and 101.11 for CLNZ. The developed validated method was found suitable for the routine analysis of ESC and CLNZ in bulk and tablet dosage form.