Pharmaceutical applications, high-sensitivity biological molecules

Pharmaceutical analysts often have no experience in direct polarographic or voltammetric methods, but almost all will have used high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for the determination of drugs and/or metabolites in biological matrices or drugs and/ or their degradation products in pharmaceutical formulations. Spectroscopy (ultraviolet and fluorescence) is the most common detection method in HPLC, but for molecules that do not possess a suitable chromophore or when increased sensitivity or specificity is required, electrochemical detection offers a suitable alternative. ELCD is applicable to any molecular species capable... 

Traditional applications for ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) have primarily revolved around security and safety because of the rapid response time of the instrument coupled with its selectivity and sensitivity. Its speed, sensitivity, and selectivity, however, open opportunities for expansion into other areas of analysis. Pharmaceuticals offer a particularly promising target area for application of IMS because, unlike environmental and biological samples, pharmaceutical mixtures are usually well defined and not too complex. In addition, many pharmaceuticals have basic sites on the molecules that produce high proton affinities thus, they respond well to the ion-molecule ionization sources used in positive-mode IMS. Analytical methods currently used in the pharmaceutical industry revolve around some type of chromatography, either liquid or gas, that is usually slow and expensive. For routine, repetitive, and rapid analyses of pharmaceutical samples, IMS offers a unique and efficient alternative to chromatography. 

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