A simple and sensitive kinetic spectrophotometric method for the quantitative analysis of pravastatin sodium (PVS) in pure and pharmaceutical formulations has been described. The method is based on the formation of colored product between PVS and 4-chloro-7-nitrobenzo-2-oxa-1,3-diazole (NBD-Cl) in acetone medium at 55 ± 2°C. The reaction is followed spectrophotometrically by measuring the increase in absorbance at 462 nm as a function of time. The initial rate and fixed time methods were

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... for constructing the calibration curves. The linearity ranges were found to be 15.0-50.0 and 10.0-70.0 lg mL À1 for initial rate and fixed time methods, respectively. The limits of detection for initial rate and fixed time methods are 0.029 and 0.086 lg mL À1 , respectively. Both methods have been applied successfully for the estimation of PVS in commercial dosage forms with no interference from the excipients. The results are compared with the HPLC pharmacopoeial method.