Business

Continuous Processes: Disposables Enable the Integration of Upstream and Downstream Processing

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Despite decades of advancement in characterization analytics, biotherapeutics still are largely defined by the manufacturing processes used to make them. This linking of process to clinical results (and thus to commercial success) has made the biopharmaceutical industry somewhat risk-averse when it comes to the adoption of new technologies. That desire to “derisk†biomanufacturing through better process understanding — as well as the need to adapt to uncertainties in patient population size through process flexibility — in turn drives the need…

May 19, 2017

The Value of Single-Use and Other Flexible Technologies

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The biopharmaceutical industry is adding mammalian cell culture capacity at rates that we haven’t seen in over a decade. Over the past five years (2012–2016), we estimate that industry-wide capacity has increased from 3.4 ML to 4.0 ML, an increase of 18% (1). We estimate that industry-wide capacity will increase over the coming five years (2016–2020) to 5.7 ML, an increase of >40%. Clearly, this growth is a response to the continued increase in demand for biopharmaceutical products and to…

May 19, 2017

Innovating in France’s Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region

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  Lyonbiopole is a French “bio-cluster†based in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region surrounding Lyon (Figure 1). The cluster supports ambitious projects and companies in the broad health industry, counting more than 200 members including Lyonbiopole’s four founders: Sanofi Pasteur (the vaccines division of multinational pharmaceutical company Sanofi), bioMérieux (known worldwide for in vitro diagnostics and microbiological testing), Merial (an animal-health company that merged recently with Boehringer Ingelheim), and Becton Dickinson (supplier of flow cytometers, reagents, tools, and services). The region also is…

May 18, 2017

An Industry Proposal for Change Notification Practices for Single-Use Biomanufacturing Systems

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Current practices for change notification in the biopharmaceutical industry are neither efficient nor conducive to accelerating the adoption of single-use systems (1, 2). Drug manufacturers (end users) often observe that supplier change data packages lack technical content or detail and that the time allowed for change implementation is too short. Occasionally, customers (end users or next tier in supply chain) learn of changes after the fact, possibly even by happenstance. Suppliers, however, can find the potential affect of a change…

May 18, 2017

Opportunities and Challenges in Biosimilar Development

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A biosimilar biotherapeutic product is similar (but not identical) in terms of quality, safety, and efficacy to an already licensed reference product. Unlike generic small molecules, it is difficult to standardize such inherently complex products based on complicated manufacturing processes. Table 1 describes the main differences between biosimilar and generic drug molecules. The global biosimilar market is growing rapidly as patents on blockbuster biologic drugs expire (Table 2) and other healthcare sectors focus on reduction of costs. Biologics are among…

May 18, 2017

Implementing Quality By Design in Analytical Development: A Case Study on the Development of an Anion-Exchange HPLC Method

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The concept of quality by design (QbD) initially was outlined in ICH Q8 guidance for drug-product development and later in Q11 for drug-substance development (1, 2). Since then, the QbD concept was further expanded to the development of analytical methods. FDA issued a 2015 guidance on analytical procedures and method validation for drugs and biologics (3). Although the agency did not explicitly state the requirement for implementation of QbD in analytical method development, the concept is embedded in its section…

May 18, 2017

Introduction: Tackling the Technical and Regulatory Challenges of Biosimilar Development

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In a just a few years, the biopharmaceutical industry has gone from questioning the feasibility of “follow-on biologics†(around the time of BPI’s first issues) to fearing them (when we published our first supplement on the topic in 2013) to the acceptance and strategizing of today. Perhaps because of its more socialized medicine, Europe led the way in biosimilar regulation and approved its first such product nearly 10 years before the first US biosimilar launch in 2015. In between came…

April 18, 2017

BioPhorum Operations Group Technology Roadmapping, Part 3: Enabling Technologies and Capabilities

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Although great strides have been made over the past 20 years to increase the productivity and robustness of manufacturing processes for biopharmaceuticals, the cost and complexity of their development and manufacturing remain high, especially in comparison with those of small-molecule pharmaceuticals. Process improvements are required to increase patient access while maintaining the viability of an R&D-driven biopharmaceutical industry. Facility productivity, cost of goods (CoG), and capital investment all have significant margins for improvement. Such goals can be achieved not only…

April 17, 2017

Strategies for Successful Sample Transfer

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Nadine Ritter is president and senior analytical advisor of Global Biotech Experts, LLC and a long-time member of BioProcess International’s editorial advisory board. At a recent CASSS North American CMC Strategy Forum called “Methods on the Move: Addressing Method Transfer Challenges,†she discussed the biopharmaceutical industry’s logistical challenges of analytical test samples for drug substances and products. At the conference, BPI’s editor in chief Anne Montgomery met with her to discuss some key points of this topic. Logistics Challenges Montgomery:…

April 17, 2017

Biosimilar Markets and Regulation: Which Countries Are Going All In?

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The pipeline of follow-on (biosimilar and biobetter) products in development for the US, EU, and other major markets is very healthy. It includes nearly 800 biosimilars, about three-quarters of which are presumed to be targeted for major markets, and about 500 biobetters in development. Nearly 1,200 follow-on biopharmaceutical products in the development pipeline are intended to compete with more than 100 currently marketed biopharmaceuticals. This is not just an opportunity in the Western world; biosimilars development is expanding globally. But…

April 11, 2017