Simultaneous Determination of Five Active Components in the Chinese Patent Medicine Niuhuang Jiangya Pill by HPLC-MS/MS.

Niuhuang Jiangya (NHJY) pill is one of the well-known Chinese patent medicines in China used in the treatment of high blood pressure. The primary purpose of this study was to establish and validate a method using HPLC with tandem MS for the quality evaluation of NHJY pill through simultaneous determination of the following five active components: baicalin, paeoniflorin, astragaloside IV, ferulic acid, and emodin. Chromatographic separation was carried out on a Hypersil GOLD HPLC C18 column (50 × 4.6 mm, 3 μm) with acetonitrile and water as mobile phase and gradient elution at a flow rate of 0.4 mL/min. The method established in this study was selective, linear, precise, and accurate and was successfully applied to evaluate five active components in NHJY pill collected from different production batches, which could be considered a good approach to control the quality of NHJY pill and other related botanical drugs.