Bivariate Analysis for the Determination of Paracetamol and Caffeine in Drug Formulations

The UV absorption spectrum of paracetamol/caffeine combination shows strongly overlapped features. Bivariate spectrophotometric analysis was applied to quantify a paracetamol/caffeine combination in commercial drug samples. The proposed method was tested according to ICH guidelines and compared to the validated HPLC-UV method. The results obtained by the bivariate method are in a good agreement with the labeled contents. Statistical evaluation using student’s t-test and F-test showed no significant differences between the results obtained by the bivariate method and the HPLC method for commercial drug samples. The bivariate spectrophotometric method is rapid, precise and accurate; it could effectively be an alternative method to HPLC.