Simultaneous Estimation of Artemether and Lumefantrine in Pharmaceutical dosage forms using Derivative Spectrophotometry

In the present investigation a simple, rapid and accurate method for the simultaneous estimation of artemether (ART) and lumefantrine (LUM) was developed using derivative spectroscopic technique. To avoid the overlapping of ART and LUM in zero order spectra, first order spectrum was developed. ART showed good linearity with regression coefficient (r²) of 0.9993 over the range of 30–80μg/ml at 260 nm wavelength and LUM showed linearity over the range of 4–12μg/ml at 286.2 nm wave length with correlation coefficient (r²) of 0.9999. The analytical method was validated for simultaneous estimation of ART and LUM both as drug solutions, in tablets and in NLCs and validation parameters are reported. Intercept value of the linear lines determined for ART and LUM were nearly zero. ART and LUM showed accuracy of 99.215 and 99.564 in terms of % recovery. The relative standard deviation (RSD at n=6) intra-day: Inter-day precision for ART and LUM were 0.944:1.124 and 0.890:1.009 respectively indicating the method is precise. LOD (μg/ml) and LOQ (μg/ml) values for ART were 0.3606 and 1.0928 and for LUM were 0.1145 and 0.3470 respectively. The developed method was successfully applied in the estimation of ART and LUM in commercial tablet (Arte plus CD) containing both the drugs.