There’s a funny meme going round social media about the naivete of conspiracy theorists: “My gut is that most of them have never been project managers. Their optimism is adorable.†And the adage may be that “too many cooks spoil the broth,†but I think it’s more like “too many stakeholders can overcomplicate anything.†That can apply to small teams working on relatively simple projects (a group of editors working on a single BPI issue, for example) as much as…
Bioassay development is a complex process that must be undertaken with great rigor and attention to detail. Potency testing experts use a range of methods including cell-based and binding assays. Consistency and reliability of results over time are paramount. Well-developed and -characterized methods are the end result of much phase-appropriate development work that goes on in parallel with bioprocess and biotherapeutic product development. This eBook begins with BPI senior technical editor Cheryl Scott’s report from the Biopharmaceutical Emerging Best Practices…
Monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) remain the dominant biopharmaceutical product class, but as biotechnologies have advanced in recent decades, developers have found ways to exploit their “magic-bullet†capabilities while putting aside their limitations. That has led to a new generation of antibody-related therapeutics created by cutting and pasting molecular domains. Researchers are mixing and matching functional moieties of antibodies and other molecules to create custom-designed proteins with powerful efficacy and tunable targeting. A simple search at Taylor & Francis Online (https://www.tandfonline.com), the…
Combining large proteins with linkers and cytotoxins, antibody–drug conjugates (ADCs) may be the most complex drug molecules in development today. Despite early promise and product approvals, a number of technical concerns arose during product and process development. Characterizing and ensuring consistency in the number of small molecules that attach to the antibody — as well as ensuring their proper attachment and biophysics — all present significant challenges to ADC developers. Solving early problems associated with product quality has introduced a…
ANGUS Life Sciences is the world’s largest supplier of tromethamine buffers and the only manufacturer of the tris molecule based in the Western hemisphere. The company sells directly to biopharmaceutical customers and contract manufacturing organizations as well as to reprocessors who repackage the chemical or process it into different grades and derivatives. After recent expansions in both the United States and Germany, the company now boasts dual-source manufacturing capabilities for its highest-purity tris products and is confident about its ability…
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought myriad economic disruptions, social complications, and public-health calamities to the world. They have understandably overshadowed the silver lining of boosting biomedical science and technology in the realms of infectious disease, oncology, and more. But alongside the much-publicized commercial debut of novel vaccine technologies have come promising advances in medical diagnostics. In this eBook, BPI’s senior technical editor brings together perspectives from industry, academia, and expert organizations to highlight some of the latest diagnostic methods and…
One silver lining to the cloud of meeting only virtually has been our ability to “attend†some conferences to which we’ve not made it very often in the past. For example, I enjoyed tuning into the International Society of Pharmaceutical Engineers (ISPE) 30th Annual Aseptic Processing Conference, which was held virtually this past spring. It helped me plan for our September featured report, and it provided a good general update on the current state of biopharmaceutical formulation, fill and finish.…
As anyone who has focused on host-cell proteins as process contaminants can tell you, trying to purify a specific type of molecule from a large mixture of many similar molecules is like trying to find a few particular needles in a huge pile of varied needles. The same could be said for purifying viral vectors from cell culture fluids. When viruses are the products, unwanted viruses are contaminants that must be separated away — or better yet, prevented from being…
By definition, an orphan disease affects a small percentage of the population. However, with some 7,000 such conditions identified so far, they collectively have a significant impact on global health. An estimated 350 million people are affected worldwide by a rare disease — altogether more than the population of the world’s third largest country (the United States). Some well-known biopharmaceutical companies are devoted to developing treatments for rare diseases. However, the vast majority of such diseases have no treatments approved by…
Part of the advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) class of therapeutics, cell and gene therapies (CGTs) can be either autologous, using the patient’s own cells, or allogeneic, using master banked donor cells. Global biotechnology company Orgenesis focuses on autologous therapies, with processes and systems developed for closed and automated processing that have been validated for regulatory-compliant production at the point of care for patient treatment. This technology could help overcome the limitations of traditionally cost-prohibitive CGT manufacturing methods that do…