Collective experiences of adventitious viruses of animal-derived raw materials and what can be done about them

Contamination of animal-derived raw materials with viruses, mycoplasmas, bacteria and fungi is common. These contaminants can interfere with the diagnosis of viral infection, and vaccines produced using infected cell cultures could lead to seroconversion or disease in the vaccinated animal. The purity, safety and efficacy of viral vaccines requires testing of the ingredients, cell substrates and final product. Methods for detection of viruses, especially bovine viral diarrhea virus, in nutrient serum, cell cultures, seed viruses and viral vaccines, and the frequency of their detection at the Center for Veterinary Biologics are discussed. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Anion exchange chromatography provides a robust, predictable process to ensure viral safety of biotechnology products

The mammalian cell-lines used to produce biopharmaceutical products are known to produce endogenous retrovirus-like particles and have the potential to foster adventitious viruses as well. To ensure product safety and regulatory compliance, recovery processes must be capable of removing or inactivating any viral impurities or contaminants which may be present. Anion exchange chromatography (AEX) is a common process in the recovery of monoclonal antibody products and has been shown to be effective for viral removal. To further characterize the robustness of viral clearance by AEX with respect to process variations, we have investigated the ability of an AEX process to remove three model viruses using various combinations of mAb products, feedstock conductivities and compositions, equilibration buffers, and pooling criteria. Our data indicate that AEX provides complete or near-complete removal of all three model viruses over a wide range of process conditions, including those typically used in manufacturing processes. Furthermore, this process provides effective viral clearance for different mAb products, using a variety of feedstocks, equilibration buffers, and different pooling criteria. Viral clearance is observed to decrease when feedstocks with sufficiently high conductivities are used, and the limit at which the decrease occurs is dependent on the salt composition of the feedstock. These data illustrate the robust nature of the AEX recovery process for removal of viruses, and they indicate that proper design of AEX processes can ensure viral safety of mAb products.     

Suitability of a generic virus safety evaluation for monoclonal antibody investigational new drug applications

Biologics produced from CHO cell lines with endogenous virus DNA can produce retrovirus-like particles in cell culture at high titers, and other adventitious viruses can find their way through raw materials into the process to make a product. Therefore, it is the industry standard to have controls to avoid introduction of viruses into the production process, to test for the presence of viral particles in unclarified cell culture, and to develop purification procedures to ensure that manufacturing processes are robust for viral clearance. Data have been accumulated over the past four decades on unit operations that can inactivate and clear adventitious virus and provide a high degree of assurance for patient safety. During clinical development, biological products are traditionally tested at process set points for viral clearance. However, the widespread implementation of platform production processes to produce highly similar IgG antibodies for many indications makes it possible to leverage historical data and knowledge from representative molecules to allow for better understanding and control of virus safety. More recently, individualized viral clearance studies are becoming the rate-limiting step in getting new antibody molecules to clinic, particularly in Phase 0 and eIND situations. Here, we explore considerations for application of a generic platform virus clearance strategy that can be applied for relevant investigational antibodies within defined operational parameters in order to increase speed to the clinic and reduce validation costs while providing a better understanding and assurance of process virus safety.     

Issues in the development of medical products based on human plasma

Product development and process validation are shown in the case of several products obtained from human plasma. These are virus-inactivated plasma, intravenous immunoglobulins and the clotting factors VIII and IX. Different analytical methods are presented, which are used for product control and in-process control. For the production of virus-inactivated human plasma a down-scale protocol is presented, allowing a simulation of the production on a laboratory scale. Virus validation has shown that the reduction of transfusion-relevant viruses in the process was higher than six log steps. Determination of leachables from the RP-column, which was used in this production, proved that they appear in the final product in quantities below the detection limits only. It was also shown that the chemicals used for virus inactivation could be quantitatively removed from the product. For the isolation of other products, here intravenous gamma globulins and the clotting factors VIII and IX, similar validation steps had to be taken. In the case of clotting factor VIII the following data were determined, the reduction of viruses, the amount of leachables from the column, the residues of chemicals from the solvent/detergent treatment for virus inactivation. Virus reduction was successfully performed as well as the removal of chemicals used for virus inactivation. The amount of leachables from the columns used for chromatographic purification was found to be far below the permissible levels.     

Issues in the development of medical products based on human plasma

Product development and process validation are shown in the case of several products obtained from human plasma. These are virus-inactivated plasma, intravenous immunoglobulins and the clotting factors VIII and IX. Different analytical methods are presented, which are used for product control and in-process control. For the production of virus-inactivated human plasma a down-scale protocol is presented, allowing a simulation of the production on a laboratory scale. Virus validation has shown that the reduction of transfusion-relevant viruses in the process was higher than six log steps. Determination of leachables from the RP-column, which was used in this production, proved that they appear in the final product in quantities below the detection limits only. It was also shown that the chemicals used for virus inactivation could be quantitatively removed from the product. For the isolation of other products, here intravenous gamma globulins and the clotting factors VIII and IX, similar validation steps had to be taken. In the case of clotting factor VIII the following data were determined, the reduction of viruses, the amount of leachables from the column, the residues of chemicals from the solvent/detergent treatment for virus inactivation. Virus reduction was successfully performed as well as the removal of chemicals used for virus inactivation. The amount of leachables from the columns used for chromatographic purification was found to be far below the permissible levels.     

Safety of snake antivenom immunoglobulins: Efficacy of viral inactivation in a complete downstream process

Viral safety remains a challenge when processing a plasma‐derived product. A variety of pathogens might be present in the starting material, which requires a downstream process capable of broad viral reduction. In this article, we used a wide panel of viruses to assess viral removal/inactivation of our downstream process for Snake Antivenom Immunoglobulin (SAI). First, we screened and excluded equine plasma that cross‐reacted with any model virus, a procedure not published before for antivenoms. In addition, we evaluated for the first time the virucidal capacity of phenol applied to SAI products. Among the steps analyzed in the process, phenol addition was the most effective one, followed by heat, caprylic acid, and pepsin. All viruses were fully inactivated only by phenol treatment; heat, the second most effective step, did not inactivate the rotavirus and the adenovirus used. We therefore present a SAI downstream method that is cost‐effective and eliminates viruses to the extent required by WHO for a safe product. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog., 29:972–979, 2013     

A novel approach to achieving modular retrovirus clearance for a parvovirus filter

Viral filtration is routinely incorporated into the downstream purification processes for the production of biologics produced in mammalian cell cultures (MCC) to remove potential viral contaminants. In recent years, the use of retentive filters designed for retaining parvovirus (～20 nm) has become an industry standard in a conscious effort to further improve product safety. Since retentive filters remove viruses primarily by the size exclusion mechanism, it is expected that filters designed for parvovirus removal can effectively clear larger viruses such as retroviruses (～100 nm). In an attempt to reduce the number of viral clearance studies, we have taken a novel approach to demonstrate the feasibility of claiming modular retrovirus clearance for Asahi Planova 20N filters. Porcine parvovirus (PPV) and xenotropic murine leukemia virus (XMuLV) were co‐spiked into six different feedstreams and then subjected to laboratory scale Planova 20N filtration. Our results indicate that Planova 20N filters consistently retain retroviruses and no retrovirus has ever been detected in the filtrates even when significant PPV breakthrough is observed. Based on the data from multiple in‐house viral validation studies and the results from the co‐spiking experiments, we have successfully claimed a modular retrovirus clearance of greater than 6 log₁₀ reduction factors (LRF) to support clinical trial applications in both USA and Europe. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog., 30:79–85, 2014     

Application of QbD Principles for the Evaluation of Empty Hard Capsules as an Input Parameter in Formulation Development and Manufacturing

Understanding the product and process variable on the final product performance is an essential part of the quality-by-design (QbD) principles in pharmaceutical development. The hard capsule is an established pharmaceutical dosage form used worldwide in development and manufacturing. The empty hard capsules are supplied as an excipient that is filled by pharmaceutical manufacturers with a variety of different formulations and products. To understand the potential variations of the empty hard capsules as an input parameter and its potential impact on the finished product quality, a study was performed investigating the critical quality parameters within and in between different batches of empty hard gelatin capsules. The variability of the hard capsules showed high consistency within the specification of the critical quality parameters. This also accounts for the disintegration times, when automatic endpoint detection was used. Based on these data, hard capsules can be considered as a suitable excipient for product development using QbD principles.     

采用基因微阵列技术对常见呼吸道病毒进行检测的初步研究

建立一种高通量的基因微阵列检测技术,对常见呼吸道病毒感染进行监控.根据公开发表的8个病毒科38种常见呼吸道病毒的序列,计算其保守区域,设计病毒的特异性检测探针,制备呼吸道病毒检测基因微阵列.利用随机引物PCR方法标记样品中的病毒靶序列,标记产物与基因微阵列上的探针杂交,清洗、扫描后进行结果分析.采用流感病毒、麻疹病毒、腮腺炎病毒和风疹病毒作为报告病毒,并对80例上呼吸道感染患者的咽拭子标本进行验证测试.初步结果表明,该呼吸道病毒微阵列基因芯片检测是可行的,在利用基因微阵列技术对病毒监控方面进行了有益的尝试,得到了有经验的信息.     

Evaluation of restricted access media for the purification of cell culture-derived Orf viruses

Recently, multimodal chromatography using restricted access media (RAM) for the purification of nanoparticles, such as viruses has regained increasing attention. These chromatography resins combine size exclusion on the particle shell and adsorptive interaction within the core. Accordingly, smaller process-related impurities, for example, DNA and proteins, can be retained, while larger product viruses can pass unhindered. We evaluated a range of currently available RAM, differing in the shells’ pore cut-off and the core chemistry, for the purification of a cell culture-derived clarified model virus, namely the Orf virus (ORFV). We examined impurity depletion and product recovery as relevant criteria for the evaluation of column performance, as well as scale-up robustness and regeneration potential for evaluating a multiple use application. The results indicate that some columns, for example, the Capto Core, enable both a high DNA and protein removal, while others, for example, the Monomix Core 60 (MC60), are more suitable for DNA depletion. Furthermore, column regeneration is facilitated by using columns with larger shell pores (5000 vs. 700 kDa) and weaker binding interactions (anion exchange vs. multimodal). According to these findings, the choice of RAM resins should be selected according to the respective feed sample composition and the planned number of application cycles.     

Development of a modular virus clearance package for anion exchange chromatography operated in weak partitioning mode

Anion exchange chromatography (AEX) operated under weak partitioning mode has been proven to be a powerful polishing step as well as a robust viral clearance step in Pfizer's monoclonal antibody (mAb) platform purification process. A multivariate design of experiment (DoE) study was conducted to understand the impact of operating parameters and feedstream impurity levels on viral clearance by weak partitioning mode AEX. Bacteriophage was used initially as a surrogate for neutral and acidic isoelectric point mammalian viruses (e.g., retrovirus and parvovirus). Five different mAbs were used in the evaluation of process parameters such as load challenge (both product and impurities), load pH, load conductivity, and contact time (bed height and flow‐rate). The operating ranges obtained from phage clearance studies and Pfizer's historical data were used to define an appropriate operating range for a subsequent clearance study with model retrovirus and parvovirus. Both phage and virus clearance evaluations included feedstreams containing different levels of impurities such as high molecular mass species (HMMS), host cell proteins (HCPs), and host cell DNA. For all the conditions tested, over 5 log₁₀ of clearance for both retrovirus and parvovirus was achieved. The results demonstrated that weak partitioning mode AEX chromatography is a robust step for viral clearance and has the potential to be included as part of the modular viral clearance approach. © 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog., 31:750–757, 2015     

Chemometrics applications in biotech processes: assessing process comparability

A typical biotech process starts with the vial of the cell bank, ends with the final product and has anywhere from 15 to 30 unit operations in series. The total number of process variables (input and output parameters) and other variables (raw materials) can add up to several hundred variables. As the manufacturing process is widely accepted to have significant impact on the quality of the product, the regulatory agencies require an assessment of process comparability across different phases of manufacturing (Phase I vs. Phase II vs. Phase III vs. Commercial) as well as other key activities during product commercialization (process scale-up, technology transfer, and process improvement). However, assessing comparability for a process with such a large number of variables is nontrivial and often companies resort to qualitative comparisons. In this article, we present a quantitative approach for assessing process comparability via use of chemometrics. To our knowledge this is the first time that such an approach has been published for biotech processing. The approach has been applied to an industrial case study involving evaluation of two processes that are being used for commercial manufacturing of a major biosimilar product. It has been demonstrated that the proposed approach is able to successfully identify the unit operations in the two processes that are operating differently. We expect this approach, which can also be applied toward assessing product comparability, to be of great use to both the regulators and the industry which otherwise struggle to assess comparability.     

Identification of Particles in Raw Materials

Raw materials need to be of a certain quality with respect to physical and chemical composition. They also need to have no contaminants in the form of particles because these could get into the product or indicate the raw materials are not pure enough to make a good quality product. When particles are found, it is important to identify their chemical and elemental composition to correct any process errors that can cause them and to have acceptable quality of the final product. Sources of materials can be the environment, process equipment and processing, and packaging. Microscope versions of Raman spectroscopy, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), and IR spectroscopy are excellent tools for identifying particles in materials because they are fast and accurate techniques needing minimal sample preparation that can provide chemical composition as well as images that can be used for identification. The micro analysis capabilities allow for easy analysis of different portions of samples so that multiple components can be identified and sample preparation can be reduced or eliminated. The complementarity of the techniques provides the advantage of identifying various chemical components, as well as elemental and image analyses. The sources of materials were seen to be the environment, process equipment and processing, and packaging.     

De-risking Pharmaceutical Tablet Manufacture Through Process Understanding,Latent Variable Modeling,and Optimization Technologies

In pharmaceutical tablet manufacturing processes, a major source of disturbance affecting drug product quality is the (lot-to-lot) variability of the incoming raw materials. A novel modeling and process optimization strategy that compensates for raw material variability is presented. The approach involves building partial least squares models that combine raw material attributes and tablet process parameters and relate these to final tablet attributes. The resulting models are used in an optimization framework to then find optimal process parameters which can satisfy all the desired requirements for the final tablet attributes, subject to the incoming raw material lots. In order to de-risk the potential (lot-to-lot) variability of raw materials on the drug product quality, the effect of raw material lot variability on the final tablet attributes was investigated using a raw material database containing a large number of lots. In this way, the raw material variability, optimal process parameter space and tablet attributes are correlated with each other and offer the opportunity of simulating a variety of changes in silico without actually performing experiments. The connectivity obtained between the three sources of variability (materials, parameters, attributes) can be considered a design space consistent with Quality by Design principles, which is defined by the ICH-Q8 guidance (USDA 2006). The effectiveness of the methodologies is illustrated through a common industrial tablet manufacturing case study.     

Evaluation of the human host range of bovine and porcine viruses that may contaminate bovine serum and porcine trypsin used in the manufacture of biological products

Current U.S. requirements for testing cell substrates used in production of human biological products for contamination with bovine and porcine viruses are U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) 9CFR tests for bovine serum or porcine trypsin. 9CFR requires testing of bovine serum for seven specific viruses in six families (immunofluorescence) and at least 2 additional families non-specifically (cytopathicity and hemadsorption). 9CFR testing of porcine trypsin is for porcine parvovirus. Recent contaminations suggest these tests may not be sufficient. Assay sensitivity was not the issue for these contaminations that were caused by viruses/virus families not represented in the 9CFR screen. A detailed literature search was undertaken to determine which viruses that infect cattle or swine or bovine or porcine cells in culture also have human host range [ability to infect humans or human cells in culture] and to predict their detection by the currently used 9CFR procedures. There are more viruses of potential risk to biological products manufactured using bovine or porcine raw materials than are likely to be detected by 9CFR testing procedures; even within families, not all members would necessarily be detected. Testing gaps and alternative methodologies should be evaluated to continue to ensure safe, high quality human biologicals.     

Oligonucleotide abundance biases aid design of a type IIS synthetic genomics framework with plant virome capacity

Synthetic genomics-driven dematerialization of genetic resources facilitates flexible hypothesis testing and rapid product development. Biological sequences have compositional biases, which, I reasoned, could be exploited for engineering of enhanced synthetic genomics systems. In proof-of-concept assays reported herein, the abundance of random oligonucleotides in viral genomic components was analyzed and used for the rational design of a synthetic genomics framework with plant virome capacity (SynViP). Type IIS endonucleases with low abundance in the plant virome, as well as Golden Gate and No See'm principles were combined with DNA chemical synthesis for seamless viral clone assembly by one-step digestion-ligation. The framework described does not require subcloning steps, is insensitive to insert terminal sequences, and was used with linear and circular DNA molecules. Based on a digital template, DNA fragments were chemically synthesized and assembled by one-step cloning to yield a scar-free infectious clone of a plant virus suitable for Agrobacterium-mediated delivery. SynViP allowed rescue of a genuine virus without biological material, and has the potential to greatly accelerate biological characterization and engineering of plant viruses as well as derived biotechnological tools. Finally, computational identification of compositional biases in biological sequences might become a common standard to aid scalable biosystems design and engineering.     

Review: High temperature short time treatment of cell culture media and feed solutions to mitigate adventitious viral contamination in the biopharmaceutical industry

Events of viral contaminations occurring during the production of biopharmaceuticals have been publicly reported by the biopharmaceutical industry. Upstream raw materials were often identified as the potential source of contamination. Viral contamination risk can be mitigated by inactivating or eliminating potential viruses of cell culture media and feed solutions. Different methods can be used alone or in combination on raw materials, cell culture media, or feed solutions such as viral inactivation technologies consisting mainly of high temperature short time, ultraviolet irradiation, and gamma radiation technologies or such as viral removal technology for instance nanofiltration. The aim of this review is to present the principle, the advantages, and the challenges of high temperature short time (HTST) technology. Here, we reviewed effectiveness of HTST treatment and its impact on media (filterability of media, degradation of components), on process performance (cell growth, cell metabolism, productivity), and product quality based on knowledge shared in the literature.     

Membrane Fusion

The fusion of biological membranes results in two bilayer-based membranes merging into a single membrane. In this process the lipids have to undergo considerable rearrangement. The nature of the intermediates that are formed during this rearrangement has been investigated. Certain fusion proteins facilitate this process. In many cases short segments of these fusion proteins have a particularly important role in accelerating the fusion process. Studies of the interaction of model peptides with membranes have allowed for increased understanding at the molecular level of the mechanism of the promotion of membrane fusion by fusion proteins. There is an increased appreciation of the roles of several independent segments of fusion proteins in promoting the fusion process.Many of the studies of the fusion of biological membranes have been done with the fusion of enveloped viruses with other membranes. One reason for this is that the number of proteins involved in viral fusion is relatively simple, often requiring only a single protein. For many enveloped viruses, the structure of their fusion proteins has certain common elements, suggesting that they all promote fusion by an analogous mechanism. Some aspects of this mechanism also appears to be common to intracellular fusion, although several proteins are involved in that process which is more complex and regulated than is fusion.     

Validation and optimization of viral clearance in a downstream continuous chromatography setting

Continuous bioprocessing holds the potential to improve product consistency, accelerate productivity, and lower cost of production. However, switching a bioprocess from traditional batch to continuous mode requires surmounting business and regulatory challenges. A key regulatory requirement for all biopharmaceuticals is virus safety, which is assured through a combination of testing and virus clearance through purification unit operations. For continuous processing, unit operations such as capture chromatography have aspects that could be impacted by a change to continuous multicolumn operation, for example, do they clear viruses as well as a traditional batch single column. In this study we evaluate how modifying chromatographic parameters including the linear velocity and resin capacity utilization could impact virus clearance in the context of moving from a single column to multicolumn operation. A Design of Experiment (DoE) approach was taken with two model monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and two bacteriophages used as mammalian virus surrogates. The DoE enabled the identification of best and worst-case scenario for virus clearance overall. Using these best and worst-case conditions, virus clearance was tested in single column and multicolumn modes and found to be similar as measured by Log Reduction Values (LRV). The parameters identified as impactful for viral clearance in single column mode were predictive of multicolumn modes. Thus, these results support the hypothesis that the viral clearance capabilities of a multicolumn continuous Protein A system may be evaluated using an appropriately scaled-down single mode column and equipment.     

Challenges and triumphs to genomics-based natural product discovery

Genome sequencing is rapidly changing the field of natural products research by providing opportunities to assess the biosynthetic potential of strains prior to chemical analysis or biological testing. Ready access to sequence data is driving the development of new bioinformatic tools and methods to identify the products of silent or cryptic pathways. While genome mining has fast become a useful approach to natural product discovery, it has also become clear that identifying pathways of interest is much easier than finding the associated products. This has led to bottlenecks in the discovery process that must be overcome for the potential of genomics-based natural product discovery to be fully realized. In this perspective, we address some of these challenges in the context of our work with the marine actinomycete genus Salinispora, which is proving to be a useful model with which to apply genome mining as an approach to natural product discovery.