Simultaneous determination of antimalarial artemisinin, dihydroartemisinin and arteether using reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography

Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Lucknow-226 015, India E-mail : root@cirnap.sirnetd.ernet.in Fax : 91-0522-342666 Manuscript received 7 August 2000, revised 11 January 2001, accepted 24 March, 2001 A simple and rapid reversed phase HPLC method using photodiode array detection has been develop for simultaneous quantitation of α-arteether (3a), β-arteether (3b), its chemical precursor artemisinin (2) and intermediate precursors α-dihydroartemisinin (DHA) (1a) and (β-dihydroartemisinin (1b). The method is capable of separating two isomeric forms of DHA (α,β), arteether (α,β) and artemisinin.in a single run. The method is suitable for monitoring the reaction product in the preparation of arteether using artemisinin via dihydroartemisinin.