Validated Simple and Affordable Visible Spectrophotometric Methods Development for the Assay of Almotriptan malate in Bulk and Pharmaceutical Preparations

Two simple, sensitive and affordable visible spectrophotometric methods (M₁ and M₂) have been developed for the estimation of Almotriptan malate (AM) in bulk and dosage forms. Method M₁ involves Internal salt formation of aconitic anhydride, dehydration product of citric acid [CIA] with acetic anhydride [Ac₂O] to form colored chromogen with an absorption maximum of 560 nm and the method M₂ is based on the formation of green colored coordination complex by the drug with cobalt thiocyanate which is quantitatively extractable into nitro benzene with an absorption maximum of 620 nm. Beer's law obeyed in the concentration range of 8–24μg/ml for method M₁ and 20–60 μg/ml for method M₂. Axert tablets were analyzed and the results are statistically compared with those obtained by the reference UV method and validated by recovery studies. The results are found satisfactory and reproducible. These methods are applied successfully for the estimation of the almotriptan malate in the presence of other ingredients that are usually present in dosage forms. These methods offer the advantages of rapidity, simplicity and sensitivity and normal cost and can be easily applied to resource-poor settings without the need for expensive instrumentation and reagents.