Reverse phase high speed liquid chromatography of antibiotics. III. Use of ultra high performance columns and ion-pairing techniques.

Improved methods for the separation and quantitation of cephalosporin, penicillin, aminoglycoside and anthracycline antibiotics are presented. The use of ultra high performance 5 micrometer phase columns combined with the added dimension of ion-pairing greatly increases the ease of separation and speed of analysis of complex antibiotic mixtures. Antibiotics in a variety of dosage forms and in fermentation broths have been examined in order to provide the maximum data on impurities to meet regulatory requirements for drug safety, purity and efficacy. Mixtures of antibiotics have been analyzed to demonstrate the improved separations, increased efficiency and shortened analysis times possible with ultra thin performance columns. Under these improved conditions, the danger of multiple components in a single peak are markedly reduced.