A rugged and accurate liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry method for the determination of asunaprevir, an NS3 protease inhibitor, in plasma

Asunaprevir (BMS-650032) is a potent hepatitis C virus (HCV) non-structural protein protease inhibitor currently in Phase III clinical trials for the treatment of HCV infection. A rugged and accurate LC–MS/MS method was developed and validated for the quantitation of asunaprevir in rat, dog, monkey, rabbit and mouse plasma. A systematic method screening and optimization strategy was applied to achieve optimized mass spectrometry, chromatography, and sample extraction conditions. The validated method utilized stable-isotope labeled D9-asunaprevir as the internal standard. The samples were extracted by liquid–liquid extraction using 10% ethyl acetate in hexane. Chromatographic separation was achieved with gradient elution on a Waters Atlantis dC18 analytical column. Analyte and its internal standard were detected by positive ion electrospray tandem mass spectrometry. The standard curve, which ranged from 5.00 to 2000 ng/mL for asunaprevir, was fitted to a 1/x2 weighted linear regression model. The intra-assay precision was within ±3.6% CV, inter-assay precision was within ±4.0% CV, and the assay accuracy was within ±8.1% of the nominal values in all the species. The method was successfully applied to support multiple pre-clinical toxicokinetic studies in different species.