Question - When a pharmaceutical company makes a pill, the active ingredient must be contained in a formulation that allows delivery of the drug to the targeted system. For example, oral medications must be suspended in either a liquid or pill form. The formulation must not interfere with the drug's efficacy and should not in and of itself, be reactive. Sometimes these formulations contain inert ingredients that may interfere with an assay designed to detect the active ingredient. If the formulation used to make the aspirin tablet contained a carboxylic acid, would your assay be able to differentiate between the active ingredient and the formulation? If so, how would it do so? If not, what could you do to differentiate the two species?

As much detail as feasible is really appreciated