LC–MS/MS method for the quantification of masitinib in RLMs matrix and rat urine: application to metabolic stability and excretion rate

Masitinib (MST) is a selective tyrosine kinase inhibitor. Validated liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometric method (LC–MS/MS) was developed for the quantification of MST in rat liver microsomes (RLMs) matrix. The developed method was applied to metabolic stability and excretion rate studies. Reversed phase liquid chromatography was used for resolution of MST and bosutinib (IS) using C18 (50 mm × 2.1 mm, 1.8 μm). Binary solvent system consisted of 35% solvent A (0.1% formic acid in H2O, pH: 3.2) and 65% solvent B (acetonitrile) used as mobile phase at flow rate of 0.25 mL with a total run time of 5 min. Injection volume was 5 µL. Generation of ions was done in positive ESI source and quantification of MST and IS were done using MRM mode. The developed method showed a linearity in the range of 5–200 ng/mL (r2 ≥ 0.9992) with LOQ and LOD of 0.25 and 0.76 ng/mL in RLMs. The intra- and inter-day precision and accuracy ranged from 0.95 to 1.49 and − 5.22 to 1.13%, respectively in RLMs. Rate of disappearance of MST during incubation with RLMs was almost linear allover incubation time. In vitro t1/2 was 50.38 min and CLin was 3.11 ± 0.2. The developed method was applied also to measure the rate of masitinib excretion in rat urine. The method can used for further pharmacokinetic studies of MST.