Antimicrobial Preservatives for Protein and Peptide Formulations: An Overview.

Biological drugs intended for multi-dose application require the presence of antimicrobial preservatives to avoid microbial growth. As the presence of certain preservatives has been reported to increase protein and peptide particle formation, it is essential to choose a preservative compatible with the active pharmaceutical ingredient in addition to its preservation function. Thus, this review describes the current status of the use of antimicrobial preservatives in biologic formulations considering (i) appropriate preservatives for protein and peptide formulations, (ii) their physico-chemical properties, (iii) their in-/compatibilities with other excipients or packaging material, and (iv) their interactions with the biological compound. Further, (v) we present an overview of licensed protein and peptide formulations.

Investigating photodegradation of antibodies governed by the light dosage.

The present study investigated the photodegradation of three different monoclonal antibodies (mAb) by visible light. Several chromatographic techniques, such as size-exclusion and hydrophobic interaction chromatography as well as mass spectrometry were used to measure relative changes of various oxidation related monoclonal antibody species. The results show that visible light is indeed capable of inducing the formation of protein photo-oxidation products, such as acidic, basic, hydrophilic, and several other protein species with altered physicochemical properties. Although, the formation rate of degradants of these three protein species was dependent on the light source's intensity (I), their yield is clearly correlated to the applied light dosage (ld), which is defined as the product of light intensity I and irradiation time t (light dosage = I·t). Hence, our findings indicate that the degradation of monoclonal antibodies can be described according to the Bunsen-Roscoe reciprocity law. This correlation can be useful to assess the impact of photodegradation of biologics with regards to changes in light intensity and/or duration of light exposure of the protein, e.g. during the manufacturing of biologics.

Development and validation of a selective marker-based quantification of polysorbate 20 in biopharmaceutical formulations using UPLC QDa detection.

Polysorbates are widely used as non-ionic surfactant in biopharmaceutical formulations. Recently, the degradation of polysorbate moved into the focus of attention, because in several published studies it was described, that stability issues in polysorbate containing formulations were observed leading to the formation and appearance of sub-visible and visible particles. For this reason, monitoring of polysorbate and its degradation products is of importance throughout the development of parenterals. The aim of the study was to develop a method for the selective marker-based quantification of adequate polysorbate 20 components of interest without the need to apply derivatization or complex detection techniques. A single quadrupole mass (QDa) detector was used coupled to an ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) system. Method development was based on a reversed phase-high performance liquid chromatography assay coupled to a charged aerosol detector (RP-HPLC CAD). Instead of a charged aerosol detector (CAD) a QDa detector was used in order to significantly improve the selectivity. The focus of this study is the development of the QDa based method for the analysis of polysorbate 20. Modifications of the mobile phase and the type of chromatography column allowed the separation of several components of polysorbate 20 from polar non-esterified to apolar higher order species. In addition, a multitude of components could be quantified by their individual m/z values. The peak assignment identified 676 compounds which originated from polysorbate 20. Some of these were selected and defined as marker components. It was shown that the developed method is capable to determine polysorbate 20 in different biopharmaceutical formulations. The proposed assay is based on a smart sample preparation as well as a unique calibration procedure that make the determination of several selected components achievable. Furthermore, it was successfully demonstrated that the analytical procedure is valid to reliably quantify several polysorbate 20 components at its 100% level (corresponds to 0.4 mg/mL intact polysorbate 20) and even at lower concentrations that occur e.g. in case of polysorbate 20 degradation. In conclusion, the method is beneficial to determine selected polysorbate 20 species during formulation development of biopharmaceuticals as well as during stability testing and trouble shooting.

Development of a pilot-scale manufacturing process for protein-coated microcrystals (PCMC): mixing and precipitation - part I.

A novel protein-coated microcrystal (PCMC) technology offers the possibility to produce dry protein formulations suitable for inhalation or, after reconstitution, for injection. Micron-sized particles are hereby produced by co-precipitation via a rapid dehydration method. Thus, therapeutic proteins can be stabilised and immobilised on crystalline carrier surfaces. In this study, the development of a continuous manufacturing process is described, which can produce grams to kilograms of PCMC. The process chain comprises three steps: mixing/precipitation, solvent reduction (concentration) and final drying. The process is published in two parts. This part describes the mixing and precipitation performed using continuous impingement jet mixers. Mixing efficiency was improved by dividing the anti-solvent flow into two or four jets, which were combined again inside the mixer to achieve an embracing of the aqueous solution (sandwich effect). The jets provided high energy dissipation rates. The anti-solvent jets (95% of the total volume) efficiently mixed the protein-carrier containing aqueous solution (5% of the total volume), which was demonstrated with computational fluid dynamics and the Villermaux-Dushman reaction. The improved mixing performance of the double jet impingement (DJI) or the quadruple jet impingement (QJI) mixers showed a positive effect on easily crystallising carriers (e.g. dl-valine) at laminar flow rates. The mixer and outlet tube bore size was 2.0-3.2 mm, because smaller sizes showed a high tendency to block the mixer. The mixing effect by impaction was sufficiently high in the flow rate range of 250-2000 mL/min, which corresponds to the transition from laminar to turbulent flow characteristics. At lower flow rates, mixing was enhanced by ultrasound. 50-80L PCMC suspension was readily produced with the QJI mixer.

Lysozyme-lysozyme self-interactions as assessed by the osmotic second virial coefficient: impact for physical protein stabilization.

The purpose of the presented study is to understand the physicochemical properties of proteins in aqueous solutions in order to identify solution conditions with reduced attractive protein-protein interactions, to avoid the formation of protein aggregates and to increase protein solubility. This is assessed by measuring the osmotic second virial coefficient (B(22)), a parameter of solution non-ideality, which is obtained using self-interaction chromatography. The model protein is lysozyme. The influence of various solution conditions on B(22) was investigated: protonation degree, ionic strength, pharmaceutical relevant excipients and combinations thereof. Under acidic solution conditions B(22) is positive, favoring protein repulsion. A similar trend is observed for the variation of the NaCl concentration, showing that with increasing the ionic strength protein attraction is more likely. B(22) decreases and becomes negative. Thus, solution conditions are obtained favoring attractive protein-protein interactions. The B(22) parameter also reflects, in general, the influence of the salts of the Hofmeister series with regard to their salting-in/salting-out effect. It is also shown that B(22) correlates with protein solubility as well as physical protein stability.