A simple and sensitive kinetic spectrophotometric method was developed for the determination of ciclopirox olamine in pharmaceutical formulations (cream). The method is based on the oxidation of ciclopirox olamine with KMnO4 in alkaline medium to form K2MnO4, a bluish green color compound, at ionic strength controlled and room temperature. The reaction is monitored measuring the rate of change of absorbance at 610 nm. The absorbance-concentration plot corresponding to synthetic pharmaceutical samples (cream) was rectilinear, over the range of 0.32 – 10.0 μg mL-1, with detection and quantification limits of 0.095 μg mL-1 and 0.32 μg mL-1, respectively. Different experimental parameters affecting the development and stability of the reaction product were carefully studied via factorial screening and optimized by univariate method. The determination of ciclopirox olamine by the fixed time method is feasible and more advantageous with the calibration equation obtained at 30 min. The proposed method was validated for the application of the determination of the drug in pharmaceutical sample (cream).