This material really drove me crazy.
if you want to develope a method without a high sensitivity, you can use Refractive index detector.
we have only UV and Flourscence detectors in our lab, that's why I tried to derivatize the compound with a flourogenic agent Fmoc, but the Amino group was very hard to derivatize, and the results were so poor.
I tried to undergo estrification of the hydroxyl group, with phthalic anhydride, which is a good chromogenic agent, but I needed very high concentration of the phthalic anhydride to push the reaction to completion and the remaining phthalic acid peak dwarfed the ibandronate phthalate peak and cause poor separation.
I tried to use some catalyst "pyridine" although all my colleagues were so angry about it

but even it didn't make a good job.
well, I told my boss to buy a refractive index detector for our HPLC as it was a big failure for me, and still it hurts my feelings LOOOL.
A friend of mine has a refractive index detector at his lab, and he could develop a method for it.