Integrative analysis of tepotinib forced degradation: Combining in-silico and liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight-tandem mass spectrometry approaches for structural elucidation

The present research aimed to comprehensively investigate the forced degradation of tepotinib through a combined in-silico and experimental analysis. Tepotinib is a recently approved drug for metastatic non-small cell lung cancer. A short and precise ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) method utilizing a CSH C18 column (100 x 2.1 mm, 1.7 mu m) was developed, using a mobile phase A as 0.1% formic acid and mobile phase B as HPLC-grade acetonitrile. The flow rate was set at 0.2 mL/min, and detection was carried out at 260 nm. Forced degradation was carried out under acidic, basic, oxidative, and photolytic environments and also virtually with Zeneth software. Structural characterization of degradation products (DPs) was carried out using hyphenated techniques such as LC-quadrupole time-of-flight-tandem mass spectrometry in positive electrospray ionization mode. Further, toxicity was assessed with Derek and Sarah software. Analysis revealed the formation of five distinct forced DPs: DP-1 (m/z 511), DP-2 (m/z 527), DP-3 (m/z 525), DP-4 (m/z 512), and DP-5 (m/z 509) under experimental conditions and eight in Zeneth prediction. Furthermore, nephrotoxicity alerts were observed for DP-3 and DP-5, whereas DP-3 also showed mutagenicity alerts. This integrated blend of in-silico and real experimental analyses was found to be effective in quality control for routing monitoring of degradation products of tepotinib.