Charles N. McEwen

Because of the wide variety of ways counter drugs have been entering the pharmaceutical supply chain, there is an imminent need for quick and inexpensive methods to identify drug components and quantify active ingredients. Here, we report results illustrating the screening properties of solvent assisted ionization mass spectrometry (SAI-MS) and the quantitative properties of liquid chromatography (LC)-SAI-MS. These methods offer high sensitivity, versatility, and in combination, rapid turnaround time. Suspect samples of fexofenadine hydrochloride and hydroxychloroquine were rapidly screened and compared to their legal counterparts using SAI-MS.

An important attribute of a novel ionization process for use in mass spectrometry (MS) is its simplicity and flexibility to be hyphenated to conventional liquid-based separation methods.