A simple dilute and shoot methodology for the identification and quantification of illegal insulin

Publication date: Available online 22 April 2016 Source:Journal of Pharmaceutical Analysis Author(s): Celine. Vanhee, Steven Janvier, Goedele Moens, Eric Deconinck, Patricia Courselle The occurrence of illegal medicines is a well-established global problem and concerns mostly small molecules. However, due to the advances in genomics and recombinant expression technologies there is an increased development of polypeptide therapeutics. Insulin is one of the best known polypeptide drug and illegal versions of this medicine have already led to lethal incidents in the past. Therefore it is crucial for the public health sector to develop reliable, efficient, cheap, unbiased and easily applicable active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) identification and quantification strategies for routine analysis of suspected illegal insulins. Here we demonstrate that our combined label-free full scan approach is not only able to distinguish between all those different versions of insulin and the insulins originating from different species, but is also able to chromatographically separate human insulin and insulin lispro in conditions that are compatible with mass spectrometry (MS). Additionally, we were also able to selectively quantify the different insulins, including human insulin and insulin lispro according to the validation criteria, put forward by the united nations (UN), for the analysis of seized illicit drugs. The proposed identification and the quantification method is c...
Source: Journal of Pharmaceutical Analysis - Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Source Type: research