An early BPI Lab article addressed the power of liquid chromatographic separations for biopharmaceutical laboratory use (1). Such techniques separate biomolecules based on a number of different properties: size, solubility, hydrophobicity/-philicity, binding affinity. The next most powerful means of separation — and thus high-resolution identification — of nucleic acids and proteins/peptides is based primarily on electrostatic properties: electrophoresis. Although it doesn’t really work in a process or preparative setting, it is a fundamental technique in modern biopharmaceutical laboratories, where it…
Chromatography
Process Improvements Increase Production Capacity of a Legacy Product
Implementation of postlicensure process improvements in the biopharmaceutical industry can benefit patients and drug manufacturers alike. Here we demonstrate through a case study how a change to the cell culture medium and process can be taken from proof of concept through scale-up to demonstration of feasibility. We further illustrate the scope and complexity of implementing a change in commercial manufacturing to realize significant benefits such as increased production capacity over an existing legacy process. The Importance of Postapproval Improvements Drug…
Emerging Challenges to Protein A
Protein A affinity chromatography has been a target for replacement since its commercial debut, mainly because of its high acquisition cost. The technique became established despite the cost because it was born into an industrial culture that favored speed to market over manufacturing economy (1). Vendors have since strengthened protein A’s position with incremental but worthy improvements such as higher capacity, lower ligand leaching, and modest tolerance of NaOH. Collateral improvements in polishing technologies, such as the high throughput and…
Enlightening Results
Separating spectroscopy from spectrometry is not as straightforward as it might seem. Spectroscopy is the science of the interactions between matter and radiated energy, and spectrometry is the technology that applies that science (1). The former generates no results on its own. It is concerned with spectra produced when matter interacts with or emits electromagnetic radiation, including all methods of producing and analyzing light spectra using spectroscopes, spectrographs, spectrometers, and spectrophotometers. The distinction should come from the meanings of the…
Protein A
The number of blockbuster monoclonal antibody (MAb) drugs continues to grow. In 2008, MAbs generated revenues in excess of US$15 billion (1), making them the highest-earning category of all biotherapeutics. The world MAb market will reach $62.3 billion in 2015, with next-generation therapeutic antibody revenues reaching $2.3 billion in 2015 according to Visiongain reports published in September and November 2011 (2, 3). Biosimilar antibodies will also begin to enter established markets as regulatory authorities clear approval pathways for them. Most…
NIR Spectroscopy for Process Monitoring and Control in Mammalian Cell Cultivation
The quality by design (QbD) and process analytical technology (PAT) approaches have shown significant benefit in the classical pharmaceutical industry and are now strongly influencing bioprocessing. Monitoring critical process parameters (CPPs) during biotechnological cell cultivations is essential to maintaining high efficiencies and quality. Commercial sensor systems for real-time inline monitoring are available for some parameters, such as pH or the concentration of dissolved oxygen (DO). For others such as glucose concentration, total cell count (TCC), and viability no robust online…
Increasing Purity and Yield in Biosimilar Production
Current downstream processing strategies for recombinant proteins often require multiple chromatographic steps, which may lead to poor overall yields. Product purification can be especially difficult when a target protein displays reduced stability, forms isoforms or misprocessed variants, or needs to be purified from a complex mixture containing a high degree of contaminants. One technology that has been developed to tackle such limitations is based on custom-made chromatography matrices containing camelid-based single-domain antibody fragments. With a molecular weight of only 12–15…
A Salt-Tolerant Anion-Exchange Chromatography Sorbent for Flexible Process Development
In most downstream purification processes designed for biopharmaceutical drug production, dilution and diafiltration sequences are unavoidable. Such operations are routinely used to adjust a feedstock or chromatographic fraction to the optimal conditions required for best process performances. Nevertheless, those steps are often time, water, and labor consuming without participating directly in final product purification. Because biopharmaceutical production is increasingly driven by cost reduction, a possible means for enhancing process economics is to streamline purification by eliminating these unit operations before…
Purifying Common Light-Chain Bispecific Antibodies
A bispecific antibody can bind two different antigens. Immunoglobulin G (IgG) type antibodies have two binding sites with different variable regions. An IgG variable region is made up of a variable light-chain sequence (VL) and a variable heavy-chain sequence (VH). The light chains (LCs) of common LC antibodies are identical for both variable regions, leaving the heavy chain (HC) for generating different specificities. Thus, recombinant host cells for production of common LC bispecific antibodies carry genes for both HCs, with…
A Decade of Harvesting Methods
The preliminary separation of a protein of interest from a reactor “soup†of process impurities (e.g., cell debris, colloids, lipids) is the first step in a downstream process. It is also a primary step that introduces a significant risk of product degradation, bioburden concerns, or process errors, especially if a harvest method is not a good “fit†with a newly designed bioreactor (e.g., single-use) or fermentation vessel. In 2003, BPI’s first year, industry concerns revolved around potential capacity…