Simple reversed-phase ion-pair liquid chromatography assay for the simultaneous determination of mycophenolic acid and its glucuronide metabolite in human plasma and urine

A simple and reproducible reversed-phase ion-pair high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method using isocratic elution with UV absorbance detection is presented for the simultaneous quantitation of mycophenolic acid (MPA) and MPA-glucuronide (MPAG) in human plasma and urine. The sample preparation procedures involved simple protein precipitation for plasma and 10-fold dilution for urine. Each analytical run was completed within 15 min, with MPAG and MPA being eluted at 3.8 and 11.4 min, respectively. The optimized method showed good performance in terms of specificity, linearity, detection and quantitation limits, precision and accuracy. This assay was demonstrated to be applicable for clinical pharmacokinetic studies.