The Stability-Indicating Ultra High-Performance Liquid Chromatography with Diode Array Detector and Tandem Mass Spectrometry Method Applied for the Forced Degradation Study of Ritlecitinib: An Appraisal of Green and Blue Metrics

Background/objectives: Janus kinase inhibitors open new horizons for small-molecule drugs in treating inflammatory bowel disease, with ritlecitinib demonstrating significant efficacy in clinical trials for ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. Ritlecitinib, a second-generation JAK3 Inhibitor, is a novel therapeutic agent for alopecia areata and Other autoimmune conditions.

Methods: A new stability-indicating UHPLC-DAD-MS/MS method was developed, validated, and applied for a forced degradation study of ritlecitinib under ICH guidelines.

Results: The method demonstrated high specificity, sensitivity (LOD: 0.04 µg/mL; LOQ: 0.14 µg/mL), precision (RSD ≤ 0.15%), and accuracy (99.9-100.3%). Forced degradation studies under acidic, basic, oxidative, thermal, and photolytic conditions revealed four novel degradation products. Basic degradation followed second-order kinetics, while oxidative degradation followed zero-order kinetics.

Conclusions: The validated method reliably characterized ritlecitinib's stability and degradation products, providing essential data for optimizing formulation, determining proper storage conditions, anticipating drug-excipient interactions, and ensuring quality control. The eco-friendliness and applicability of the developed forced degradation procedure were evaluated using various green and blue metric tools. Incorporating green analytical principles underscores its potential for sustainable pharmaceutical analysis.

HPLC; JAK3 inhibitor; degradation kinetics; forced degradation study; green analytical chemistry; mass spectrometry; ritlecitinib; stability-indicating method.