A new selective, and sensitive method for the determination of lixivaptan, a vasopressin 2 (V2)-receptor antagonist, in mouse plasma and its application in a pharmacokinetic study

A new, selective and sensitive HPLC method for the determination of lixivaptan, an oral selective vasopressin 2 (V2)-receptor antagonist, was investigated and validated. A Waters symmetry C18 column was used as a stationary phase in isocratic elution mode using a mobile phase composed of KH2PO4 (100 mM)-acetonitrile (40: 60, v/v) at a flow rate of 1.5 mL min-1. Diclofenac was used as the internal standard (IS). Lixivaptan and the IS were extracted from plasma by protein precipitation and were detected at 260 nm. Lixivaptan and diclofenac were eluted at 3.6 and 6.2 min, respectively. The developed method showed good linearity over the calibration range of 50 -1000 ng mL-1 with a lower limit of detection of 16.5 ng mL-1. The extraction percentage of lixivaptan in the mouse plasma was in the range of 88.88 - 114.43%, which indicates acceptable extraction. The aforementioned method was validated according to guidelines of the International Council on Harmonization (ICH). The intra- and inter-day coefficients of variation did not exceed 5.5%. This method was presented to be simple, sensitive, and accurate and was successfully adapted in a pharmacokinetic study of the profile of lixivaptan in mouse plasma. A mean maximum plasma concentration of lixivaptan of 113.82 ng mL-1 was achieved in 0.5 h after oral administration of a 10 mg kg-1 dose in mouse as determined using the developed method.