A simple, accurate and sensitive spectrophotometric method has been 
developed and validated for the determination of meloxicam. The method is 
based on the formation of the ion-associate complexes between meloxicam 
and orange G (OG), methylene blue (MB) or copper chloride (CuCl2) to give 
colored products maximally absorbed at 358, 652, 361 nm, with the three 
reagents respectively. Different factors affecting the reaction between the drug 
and the three reagents were carefully studied and optimized. Under the 
optimum conditions, linear relationships with good correlation coefficients 
(0.9956, 0.9934 and 0.9974) were found between absorbance and 
concentrations of the drug in the concentration range 1.0-22.1 µgml-1
. The 
assay limits of detection and quantitation were in the ranges 0.40-1.73, 0.66-
1.87 and 0.8-1.33 µgml-1
, respectively. The method was validated, in terms of 
accuracy and precision and the results are satisfactory. The proposed method 
was successfully applied to the determination of the investigated drug in pure 
and pharmaceutical dosage forms (recovery is 99.63, 100.14 and 99.86 % for 
OG, MB and CuCl2 respectively) without interference from the common 
excipients. The results obtained by the proposed method were comparable with 
those obtained by reference methods.