Quantitative Risk assessment of product disulfide bond reduction in a recombinant protein manufacturing

Disulfide bond reduction occurred now and then during a recombinant protein manufacturing. Their reduction often led in the loss of batches. Various prevention measures were developed. Their implementation in a manufacturing inevitably increases its operation complexity and even might impact its product qualities and process performances. It is highly desirable to apply a reduction measure only if necessary and to apply no strong measure if a moderate one works. The reduction occurrence is determined both by the reduction sensitivity of a recombinant molecule and by the reduction power of harvested cell culture fluids. The reduction power of harvested cell culture fluids varies largely and depends on cells, lysis level, growth stage, and culture conditions. The method of the quantitative risk assessment of disulfide bond reduction was reported here. The quantitative assessment is realized by comparing the reduction sensitivity of a recombinant molecule with the reduction power of its harvested cell culture fluid.

Antibody Disulfide Bond Reduction and Recovery during Biopharmaceutical Process Development - A Review

Disulfide bond reduction has been a challenging issue in antibody manufacturing, as it leads to reduced product purity, failed product specifications and more importantly, impacting drug safety and efficacy. Scientists across industry have been examining the root causes and developing mitigation strategies to address the challenge. In recent years, with the development of high-titer mammalian cell culture processes to meet the rapidly growing demand for antibody biopharmaceuticals, disulfide bond reduction has been observed more frequently. Thus, it is necessary to continue evolving the disulfide reduction mitigation strategy and development of novel approaches to achieve high product quality. Additionally, in recent years as more complex molecules emerge such as bispecific and trispecific antibodies, the molecular heterogeneity due to incomplete formation of the interchain disulfide bonds becomes a more imperative issue. Given the disulfide reduction challenges that our industry are facing, in this review, we provide a comprehensive contemporary scientific insight into the root cause analysis of disulfide reduction during process development of antibody therapeutics, mitigation strategies and recovery based on our expertise in commercial and clinical manufacturing of biologics. First, this paper intended to highlight different aspects of the root cause for disulfide reduction. Secondly, to provide a broader understanding of the disulfide bond reduction in downstream process, this paper discussed disulfide bond reduction impact to product stability and process performance, analytical methods for detection and characterization, process control strategies and their manufacturing implementation. In addition, brief perspectives on development of future mitigation strategies will also be reviewed, including platform alignment, mitigation strategy application for bi- and tri-specific antibodies and using machine learning to identify molecule susceptibility of disulfide bond reduction. The data in this review are originated from both the published papers and our internal development work.