Author Archives: David A. Brindley

In Search of a CMO for My Biotechnology Startup: How to Navigate a Journey Without Process Maps

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An innovative biopharmaceutical product can transform from an abstract idea at small scale into the basis of a burgeoning startup company. At that point, company leaders seek ways to ensure that a biologic will scale up in a quality-controlled, professional, and sustainable environment. That involves refining a research-stage prototype into a product that will be consistent and reproducible for research and development (R&D) and manufacturing and that will meet all relevant regulatory standards in specified target markets. Within the constraints…

February 4, 2022

A Multistep Research Protocol to Develop and Implement Validated Guidelines for CMO RFI and RFP Processes: Biopharmaceutical Vendor Evaluation and Selection Minimum Standards (BioVesel)

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Pursuant to the proposal for validated minimum standards for biopharmaceutical contract manufacturing organization (CMO) request-for-information (RFI) and request-for-proposal (RFP) processes (biopharmaceutical vendor evaluation and selection minimum standards, BioVesel) (1), we propose herein a multistep research protocol to develop and implement the BioVesel standards. This proposal is intended as a basis for discussion among mulitple stakeholders. Detailed research protocols for each proposed stage in the development and implementation of BioVesel will be drafted and published separately. The context of the proposed…

December 14, 2018

Proposing a Systematic QbD Approach Toward Validated Guidelines for CMO RFI and RFP Processes: Biopharmaceutical Vendor Evaluation and Selection Minimum Standards (BioVesel)

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Three major concerns predominate biotechnology executive management in organizations of all sizes and above all other risks: finance (or its absence at critical moments), technological performance, and failures in coordination. Some business functions, such as human resources (HR), are effectively siloed horizontally and therein are more likely to be susceptible to only one of those risks (1). Few functions are subject to this trinity of risks simultaneously; all functions may be exposed to failures in internal coordination, and a smaller…

October 15, 2018

Cell Culture Media: An Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient or Ancillary Material?

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Cell-based therapies are used to treat diseases that require the replacement of diseased, dysfunctional, and injured cells (1). To produce these therapies, a wide range of reagents and materials such as antibodies, growth factors, and enzymes are used in their manufacturing processes. Such necessary materials are administered through a cell culture medium. Active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) are the main ingredients that make products therapeutic. Ancillary materials (AMs) and raw materials (RMs) are essential components used during production but are not…

September 27, 2018

Scalable Purification of Viral Vectors for Gene Therapy: An Appraisal of Downstream Processing Approaches

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Gene therapy is the transfer of genetic material to a patient’s cells to achieve a therapeutic effect. Therapeutic DNA is largely delivered using viral vector systems based on adenoviruses (Ad), adenoassociated viruses (AAV), and lentiviruses (LV). With the application of such viral vectors as clinical therapeutics growing, scalable commercial processes (particularly for purification) are being investigated and optimized to best ensure that critical quality attributes (CQAs) are retained. Herein we review viral vector purification techniques and the effect of different…

February 13, 2017

Emerging Platform Bioprocesses for Viral Vectors and Gene Therapies

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Recent advances in molecular biology are expediting genomic sequencing to underpin precision medicine. Such progress is positioning gene and gene-modified cell therapy on the cusp of an extraordinary revolution in patient care for presently unmet medical needs — and a new therapeutic class that could rival monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) in importance. However, despite substantial strides made in clinical trials, the bioprocessing community is struggling to fulfill growing demands for biomanufacturing capacity to make gene and gene-modified cell therapies — including…

April 18, 2016

Automation of CAR-T Cell Adoptive Immunotherapy Bioprocessing: Technology Opportunities to Debottleneck Manufacturing

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Continued clinical efficacy demonstrations of cell-based immunotherapies (iTx) such as chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapies has made the prospect increasingly likely of an immunotherapy product achieving conditional market authorization in the short term. For example, Novartis and the University of Pennsylvania’s lead candidate (CTL019) for treating a range of hematological malignancies received breakthrough status from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2014, permitting access to an expedited drug development pathway for high unmet medical needs (1).…

April 18, 2016

Therapeutic Gene Editing: Tools to Facilitate Basic Science or Stimuli for a Paradigm Shift in Biomanufacturing?

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Historically, fundamental science and process engineering were separated by distinct vernaculars and a decade or more in the translation pathway of candidate therapeutics from laboratory to bedside (1). This crude metric holds true for the origins of the modern pharmaceutical industry, namely fine chemicals that supported the high-margin small molecules that constitute the majority of the pharmacopoeia even today. But as illustrated by deeply interwoven careers, companies, and technologies — including those related to monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) — that classic…

April 18, 2016

Decision-Support Tools for Monoclonal Antibody and Cell Therapy Bioprocessing: Current Landscape and Development Opportunities

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Industrial-scale manufacturers in a number of fields — from automobiles to biotherapeutics — have long relied on powerful computational and mathematical tools to aid in the scale-up, optimization, quality control, and monitoring of product development (1–5). Typical process pathways are highly multifactorial, with numerous branch points, feedback steps, instrumental attributes, and target parameters. Moreover, margins for error are minimal for most industrial processes, requiring high standards of precision from industrial and operational pathways (6). For those reasons, the complexity of…

December 16, 2015

Quantitative Risk Assessment of Bioaccumulation Attributable to Extractables and Leachables in Cellular Immunotherapy Biomanufacturing

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Precious patient samples, contamination concerns, and limited product purification options have compelled manufacturers of cellular immunotherapies (iTx) such as chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CAR-T) and T-cell receptor (TCR) technologies toward the disposables industry. Such companies are implementing single-use technologies (SUTs) almost exclusively (1). But despite the dominance of disposable bioprocess platforms and their extraordinary growth in the iTx marketplace, researchers have made limited efforts to understand the perennial and critical bioprocessing risks of leachables and extractables. Here we outline…

November 16, 2015