Pre-existing Reactivity to an IgG4 Fc-Epitope: Characterization and Mitigation of Interference in a Bridging Anti-drug Antibody Assay.

Twenty percent of baseline patient samples exhibited a pre-existing response in a bridging anti-drug antibody (ADA) assay for a human IgG4 monoclonal antibody (mAb) therapeutic. In some cases, assay signals were more than 100-fold higher than background, potentially confounding detection of true treatment-emergent ADA responses. The pre-existing reactivity was mapped by competitive inhibition experiments using recombinant proteins or chimeric human mAbs with IgG4 heavy chain regions swapped for IgG1 sequences. These experiments demonstrated that the majority of the samples had reactivity to an epitope containing leucine 445 in the CH3 domain of human IgG4. The pre-existing reactivity in baseline patient samples was mitigated by replacing the ADA assay capture reagent with a version of the drug containing a wild type IgG1 proline substitution at residue 445 without impacting detection of drug-specific, treatment-emergent ADA. Finally, purification on Protein G or anti-human IgG (H + L) columns indicated the pre-existing response was likely due to immunoglobulins in patient samples.

Effects of blood processing and sample storage on the stability of biotherapeutics and anti-drug antibodies.

BACKGROUND: Pre-analytical factors such as sample processing, handling or storage could affect the stability of biotherapeutics and anti-drug antibodies in clinical samples, potentially impacting the pharmacokinetic and immunogenicity assessments. METHODS: We used sarilumab, a fully human IgG1 monoclonal antibody, and evaluated the stability of sarilumab (both functional and bound forms) and anti-sarilumab antibodies in blood samples during serum collection and the impact of various processing conditions on the analyte stability in serum for long-term storage. We also assessed the incurred sample stability of these analytes in samples from clinical studies. CONCLUSION: Assessment of analyte stability can provide relevant information about sample stability under different pre-analytical conditions and improve the confidence in the validity of bioanalytical data generated.