In order to elucidate the effect of N-demethylation on the in vivo metabolite kinetics, especially hepatic first-pass effect of trimebutine(TMB), the N-demethylation of TMB to N-monodesmethyl trimebutine(N-TMB) was studied in rats. TMB(10 mg/kg) and N-TMB(10 mg/kg) were injected into the femoral and the portal vein, respectively. And the pharmacokinetic parameters were obtained from the plasma concentration-time profiles of TMB and N-TMB determined by the simultaneous analysis using high-performance liquid chromatography. It was supposed that these drugs were almost metabolized in vivo because the urinary and biliary excreated amounts of TMB and N-TMB were lower than 0.1% of the administered dose. According to the hepatic biotransformation model and metabolic pathways of TMB proposed, it was found that the fraction of systemic clearance of TMB which formed N-TMB in liver$(G_{mi})$ was 0.826, that of TMB which furnishes the available N-TMB to the systemic circulation$(F_{mi})$ was 0.083, and the absolute hepatic bioavailability of N-TMB formed trom TMB$(F_{mi.p})$ was 0.1. These results showed that TMB was suspected of the sequential hepatic first-pass metabolism and N-demethylated by 82.6%. Therefore, the residue would be hydrolyzed by the esterase in the liver. That is, the ability of N-demethylation of TMB was 4.75-fold larger than that of hydrolysis by the esterase in rats.