Biological Characterization of SB3, a Trastuzumab Biosimilar, and the Influence of Changes in Reference Product Characteristics on the Similarity Assessment.

BACKGROUND: SB3 has been developed as a trastuzumab biosimilar, a therapeutic monoclonal antibody targeted to human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), and approved by the European Commission and United States (US) Food and Drug Administration (FDA). During the developmental period of a biosimilar, setting an appropriate quality target is critical for assessing the similarity of the biosimilar product to the reference product. A stepwise approach should be taken to assessing similarity, beginning with extensive characterization of the reference product to establish the quality target. OBJECTIVE: In this study, we evaluated the similarity of SB3 to the reference product and the impact of changes in the biological profile of the reference product on similarity assessment. METHODS: Analytical similarity was assessed with defined test procedures in terms of critical quality attributes (CQAs) that could affect efficacy, potency, and safety, as well as for the non-CQAs that are related to process consistency. The quality target was established using up to 154 lots of European Union (EU)- and US-sourced Herceptin® (reference product), analyzed during the developmental period of SB3. RESULTS: Trends of the EU- and US-sourced reference product showed that the biological profile exhibited two marked changes for Fc-related attributes, and then recovered to pre-change quality level. Since the similarity range set by pre-change lots was considered most relevant, the changed lots were excluded from establishing the similarity range, which resulted in tightened acceptance criteria. As shown in the results of similarity assessment using the stringent quality target ranges, SB3 exhibits highly similar functional activities compared to the reference product in terms of both CQAs and non-CQAs. CONCLUSION: SB3 has been developed as a trastuzumab biosimilar approved in the EU and USA, and its manufacturing process is deemed to be robust and well-controlled within stringent quality target ranges.

Nanoparticle approaches to combating drug resistance.

Multidrug resistance (MDR) among cancer cells is a serious impediment to the success of conventional chemotherapy. The emergence of nanomedicine demonstrates great promise in overcoming MDR through multiple mechanisms. Nanoparticles have been shown to overcome the MDR at the tissue level through increased intratumoral accumulation resulting from enhanced permeation and retention, neovascular cell targeting, and externally triggered local drug release. Nanoparticles have also demonstrated the ability to overcome the MDR at the cellular/subcellular level by enhancing intracellular drug accumulation, improving drug-target accessibility, or even interfering with existing MDR mechanisms.

Controlled release of free doxorubicin from peptide-drug conjugates by drug loading.

Covalent modification of a drug with a peptide moiety has been extensively used as an effective strategy to improve the drug's therapeutic outcome. One important consideration in the design of such a prodrug is the release of the free drug from the covalently bound form in a desired fashion. In most cases, the free drug release rate is controlled by the use of various chemical linkers that bridge the drug to the auxiliary segment. We report here that the degree of drug conjugation per peptide could also regulate the drug release in addition to its apparent effect on drug loading of the resulting conjugates. In this work, we synthesized three peptide-drug conjugates (NTD, d-NTD and q-NTD) in which the cell penetrating peptide Tat is covalently connected to one, two, or four doxorubicin, respectively, through a cathepsin B degradable tetrapeptide linker (-Gly-Phe-Leu-Gly-). We found that the number of doxorubicin within the conjugate impacts the release of doxorubicin in a significant way, with q-NTD showing the slowest release rate while NTD showing the fastest release rate. Our cellular uptake experiments reveal that q-NTD accumulated most effectively within cancer cells while NTD shows the lowest intracellular accumulation concentration. Interestingly, our cell viability assessment using a SRB assay reveals that d-NTD is the most potent conjugate against HepG2 human liver cancer cells. These results suggest that intracellular accumulation efficiency and the free drug release rate are two important factors that determine the in vitro efficacy of drug conjugates. To further validate this conclusion, we conjugated a short hydrocarbon onto the NTD to improve its cellular uptake, and found that the resulting conjugate, C16NTD, exhibited comparable intracellular accumulation as the q-NTD conjugate but superior anticancer activity due to its more effective release of free doxorubicin.