The aim of this study was to assess the interlaboratory reproducibility of ultra-high performance supercritical fluid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry method for routine antidoping analyses. To do so, a set of 21 doping agents, spiked in urine and analyzed after dilute and shoot treatment, was used to assess the variability of their retention times between four different laboratories, all equipped with the same chromatographic system and with the same ultra-high performance supercritical fluid chromatography stationary phase chemistry. The average relative standard deviations (RSD%) demonstrated a good reproducibility of the retention times for 19 out of 21 analytes, with RSD% values below 3.0%. Only for two substances, namely fenbutrazate and niketamide, the retention was not repeatable between laboratories, with RSD% of approximately 15% in both cases. This behaviour was associated with (a) the low organic modifier percentage (around 2-4%) in the mobile phase at the corresponding retention times, and (b) the influence of the system volume on poorly retained analytes. An analysis on seven "blind" urines was subsequently carried out in the same four laboratories. In these blind samples, either one, two, or none of the 21 doping agents previously analyzed were present at an unknown concentration. Each laboratory had to perform the identification of the compounds in the samples and estimate their concentrations. All laboratories assigned all target analytes correctly in all blind urine samples and provide a comparable estimation of their concentrations.

Department of Analytical Chemistry Faculty of Pharmacy in Hradec Králové Charles University Heyrovského 1203 Hradec Králové 500 05 Czech Republic

Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Western Switzerland University of Geneva CMU Rue Michel Servet 1 Geneva 1211 Switzerland

LABERCA Oniris INRAE Nantes F 44307 France

School of Pharmaceutical Sciences University of Geneva CMU Rue Michel Servet 1 Geneva 4 1211 Switzerland

Swiss Laboratory for Doping Analyses University Center of Legal Medicine Lausanne Geneva Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois University of Lausanne Chemin des Croisettes 22 Epalinges 1066 Switzerland

Waters AG Taefernstrasse 14a Baden Daetwill 5405 Switzerland

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