Fakultät Bio- und Chemieingenieurwesen Emil-Figge-Str. 70 44227 Dortmund
Abstract:
The development of protein formulations for administration of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) is an important and growing field in pharmaceutical biotechnology [1]. The low solubilities achieved in state of the art formulations commonly only allows their administration via intravenous injection [1]. An increase in protein concentration, which enables the subcutaneous administration, requires the addition of suitable excipients / excipient mixtures to stabilize the protein in solution and increase solubility. A method for their identification, furthermore delivering a mechanistic understanding, will be identified within this work.
Description:
In order to engineer high-concentration protein formulations (HCPFs), the addition of excipients is typically required to increase the protein solubility and stability. Frequently used excipients in the (bio)-pharmaceutical industry include: amino acids, salts, sugars, polymers, and surfactants that already have a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval [1,2]. The selection of suitable excipients for development of HCPFs is commonly performed on the basis of heuristics (“trial and error”) and is carried out by high-throughput screening methods [3]. Within this work, suitable excipients and their potential will be identified based on a mechanistic understanding of the underlying molecular interactions. Based on the investigations and characterization of interactions (e.g. light-scattering analytics, physical models), it’s the aim of this work to predict thermodynamic properties of aqueous protein solutions. This will lead to a reduction in time and experimental effort in investigations of suitable protein formulations.
References:
M. A. H. Capelle, R. Gurny, T. Arvinte:"High troughput screening of protein formulation stability: Practical considerations"Europ. J. Pharm. Biopharm., 65, 131-148, 200710.1016/j.ejpb.2006.09.009
