Whether cell-based or molecular biology focused, most assays performed in biopharmaceutical laboratories involve liquid solutions. Increasingly, automated liquid handlers (laboratory robotics) are demonstrating utility in these labs, especially for high-throughput screening and optimization of cell culture media, chromatography conditions, formulations, and so on. Some experts say that screening 100,000 samples/day will soon become routine. But the robots haven’t condemned all manual pipettes to the trash heap — far from it. With multichannel and electronic pipettes improving throughput and reproducibility of…
2013
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…
Impact of Process Interruption on Virus Retention of Small-Virus Filters
Manufacturers of biopharmaceuticals using mammalian cell culture must have processes in place to minimize the likelihood of virus contamination of their products. Regulatory agencies provide guidelines for testing strategies and best practices to assure raw-material safety and control of the manufacturing process. Safety assurance relies on an interdependent matrix of managed risks, including characterization and control of raw materials, extensive testing of process intermediates, and demonstration of the virus removal capabilities of purification unit operations Figure 1: () A dedicated…
Effects of Pressure Sensor Calibration Offset on Filter Integrity Test Values
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European good manufacturing practices (GMPs) require integrity testing of sterilizing-grade filters for producing injectables and other biologics. The diffusion test (also called the forward-flow test) and bubble-point test (also called the disk test) of a sterilizing-grade filter are both filter-integrity tests. The accuracy of both relies on calibration of a pressure sensor in the respective integrity test unit. Calibration of the pressure sensor of a filter-integrity testing device is an essential part of quality…
Enhancing Antibody Production
Increasing demand for monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) — useful as immunodiagnostic reagents in basic research applications and potential immunotherapeutics — has created a need to optimize protein production techniques. Many developers have attempted to increase MAb output from cell culture by addressing both equipment and consumables. For example, recent advances in improved bioreactor designs and bioreactor operation have increased antibody outputs by increasing cell densities and extending cell life in culture. Materials and Methods () Bioreactors can operate in batch, perfusion,…
Government Medicaid Reporting
On 27 January 2012, the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published a much-anticipated proposed average manufacturer price (AMP) rule for implementing related prescription drug provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The new rule will create serious financial, administrative, and operational challenges for the life-sciences industry. Nearly two years later, the final rule has not been issued. Without official direction, we can look back at the proposed rule’s purpose and recommendations for manufacturers based…
November 2013 Issue Author Insights
From the Editor
With the approaching holiday season and the end of the year — how can that be? — we find ourselves pretty well settled into plans for our 2014 editorial calendar. As a team, we’ve met during the summer to brainstorm and share the results of our research into the subjects of next year’s special reports and supplements. What should we focus on next? What old themes and supplement topics need to be revisited, and what new topics…
Virus Risk Mitigation for Raw Materials
Recombinant protein–based medicinal products and modern cell-based vaccines have a very strong safety history with respect to viral and microbial contamination. However, virus contamination incidents do occur occasionally in manufacturing processes, and they can consume many resources and be expensive to rectify. The root cause of contamination incidents in recent years is most likely the use of contaminated raw materials. These include bovine serum contaminated with reovirus, epizootic hemorrhagic disease virus, Cache valley virus or vesivirus 2117; porcine trypsin contaminated…
Development Strategies for Novel Vaccines for Infectious Diseases
In a vaccine development program, the probability of success at each transition decreases, even though the actual probability of moving from one phase to another can be 50–80% (Figure 1). Many compounds and vaccine candidates are screened out even before they get into preclinical studies. Developers can implement different approaches to reduce product failure risk before a program gets expensive, including Establishing a product development plan (PDP) Identifying and mitigating risk with gap analysis Learning from the mistakes of others…