June 2020

Process Intensification of Viral-Based Vaccines: Where Are the Bottlenecks?

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In the current coronavirus pandemic, the ability to scale up and produce viral-based vaccines (attenuated viral vaccines, inactivated viral vaccines, and viral vector vaccines) quickly and in large quantities has never before been more relevant. For viral-based vaccines that can be produced by adherent or suspension cell culture, process intensification — in which cell culture, for example, is optimized to produce higher viral titers using the same process equipment — offers a strategy to produce larger numbers of doses in…

June 10, 2020

Ask the Expert: Emerging Trends in Drug Assembly and Packaging

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Thomas Gabriel (director of strategy and business development at Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies, FDB) emphasized patient agency in his 15 April 2020 “Ask the Expert” presentation on innovations in finished-goods solutions. Facilitating self-administration significantly benefits patients with chronic conditions, and new delivery technologies are making drug products increasingly easy to handle and with increasingly accurate dosing. Gabriel explored how single-use autoinjectors and prefilled syringes, needle shields, on-body delivery systems, and digital monitors are improving drug-delivery safety and efficacy while enabling patients…

June 10, 2020

Ask the Expert: Improving Host-Cell Protein Detection By Enriching Mass Spectrometry Samples

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Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) remain the industry standard for process monitoring and lot-release testing for host-cell proteins (HCPs), but researchers need orthogonal tests to confirm that an ELISA is fit for purpose. On 22 April 2020, Eric Bishop (vice president of research and development at Cygnus Technologies) delivered an “Ask the Expert” presentation about his company’s solution: mass spectrometry (MS) preceded by a novel Antibody Affinity Extraction (AAE) technique. Bishop explained that an AAE step can magnify a sample’s HCP…

June 10, 2020

Virtual Audits: A New Reality in the World of COVID-19

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The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has every industry seeking out ways to accomplish time-sensitive activities using a number of virtual approaches. This is certainly true in the biopharmaceutical sector, in which good manufacturing practice (GMP) audits are required to manufacture medicinal drug products for human use. Examples include supplier/vendor audits, mock inspections, and preapproval and prelicense inspections (PAIs and PLIs) conducted by sponsors and regulatory authorities. Auditors usually perform such activities on site and only sometimes remotely. In…

June 10, 2020

Navigating Technology Transfer

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Technology transfer is a key milestone in the journey from discovery to full-scale good manufacturing practice (GMP)-compliant manufacturing. Navigating this step while preventing unforeseen issues that can create costly delays is supported best by combining knowledge of a given process with understanding of the technological capabilities. Different applications have different needs. Some challenges and goals are common to bioreactor processes for suspension and adherent cell culture for production of viral vectors, monoclonal antibodies (MAbs), other recombinant proteins, and vaccines. All…

May 20, 2020