ZirChrom launches chiral chromatography products
preparative-scale high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC),
has been launched by ZirChrom Separations, which further enhances
HPLC as a method of choice for chiral pharmaceuticals.
In recent years, HPLC has become the dominant method for the analytical and preparative separation. However, until now, no CSP used zirconia or other inorganic oxides other than silica as a substrate.
Zirconia has many attractive properties for HPLC, including spherical particle shape and narrow size distribution.
Additionally, it exhibits unique chemical and mechanical stability. Its surface chemistry is very different from silica gel due to the presence of a high population of strong Lewis acid (Zr+4) sites, which provide a more robust and chemically flexible platform for CSP design.
The new ZirChrom-Chiral CSPs were developed as part of an ongoing, two-year Phase II Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) research project funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institute of Health.
The goal of this SBIR project is to develop a rapid screening technique for the evaluation of chiral selectors anchored to a zirconia particle.
HPLC has become particularly useful in drug-plasma protein binding studies (drug-protein binding) that so characterises drug discovery and development cycle.
The degree of drug - plasma protein binding (drug-protein binding) gives significant effect on the pharmacokinetic and the pharmacodynamic properties of a drug.
HPLC can be used for the determination of the degree of drug-plasma protein binding, based on human serum albumin (HSA), alpha-1-acid glycoprotein (AGP), rat serum albumin (RSA), dog serum albumin (DSA) and mouse serum albumin (MSA).
Unbound drug can penetrate the wall of the blood vessel, whereas the protein bound drug cannot. The drug plasma protein binding is also stereoselective in nature due to the inherent chirality of plasma proteins like human serum albumin (HSA) and alpha-1-acid-glycoprotein (AGP).
Many different methods are available for the determination of drug-plasma protein binding such as equilibrium dialysis and ultra filtration. These methods suffer from many disadvantages. They cannot be automated and are time consuming, unlike HPLC.
ZirChrom has introduced five new CSPs at the Garden State Convention Centre, Booth #220 from November 14-16.
