Spectrophotometric determination of some drugs for osteoporosis.

Three simple, accurate and sensitive spectrophotometric methods are developed for the determination of some new drugs for the treatment of osteoporosis: risedronate sodium (I), alendronate sodium (II) and etidronate disodium (III). The first method is based on the measurement of difference in absorbance (Delta A) of risedronate sodium in 0.01 mol l(-1) hydrochloric and 0.1 mol l(-1) sodium hydroxide at 262 nm. Beer's law is obeyed over a concentration range of 15-150 microg ml(-1) with mean recovery 99.75+/-1.22 and molar absorptivity (epsilon) 1.891 x 10(3). The second method is based on the reaction of the primary amino group of (II) with ninhydrin reagent in methanolic medium in the presence of 0.05 mol l(-1) sodium bicarbonate. The colored product is measured at 568 nm, and the linearity range is found to be 3.75-45 microg ml(-1) with mean recovery 99.77+/-0.73 and epsilon 9.425 x 10(3). The third method is based on oxidation of the three mentioned drugs with ceric (IV) sulphate in 0.5 mol l(-1) sulphuric acid at room temperature and subsequent measurement of the excess unreacted cerium (IV) sulphate at 320 nm. The method obeyed Beer's law over a concentration range of 2-24 microg ml(-1) for the three drugs with mean recovery 99.79+/-1.16, 99.73+/-1.38 and 99.86+/-1.13 and epsilon 14.427 x 10(3), 13.813 x 10(3) and 14.000 x 10(3) for drugs I, II, III respectively. The proposed methods were successfully applied for the determination of the studied drugs in bulk powder and in pharmaceutical formulations. The results were found to agree statistically with those obtained the reported methods. Furthermore, the methods were validated according to USP regulations and also assessed by applying the standard addition technique.