The rapid and seemingly uncontrolled spread of African swine fever (ASF) throughout China and many of its neighboring countries within the last 19 months (August 2018–March 2020) has put the rest of the world on high alert. The geographic distribution of viruses of importation concern, like ASF virus (ASFV), can change very quickly, putting at risk conventional sources of porcine serum and other porcine-derived products used as ingredients in research, the manufacture of biologics, and other biomedical applications. This article reviews the 2019 information from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) regarding the presence or absence of eight viruses of importation concern in the swine populations of 30 countries from animal serum-producing regions of the world. Companies importing porcine raw materials for formulation into porcine products – and their customers – should be aware of the geographic location of swine diseases of importation concern. The article also identifies ten adventitious viruses of concern cited in United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and European Union (EU) regulations that need to be tested for or eliminated through one or more barrier treatments when porcine ingredients are used in the manufacture of biologics.
BioProcessing Journal Posts
When working on biotherapeutic process development, the analysis of spent cell culture media is often a daily practice during the optimization of bioreactor conditions and media composition. The introduction of parallel microbioreactor systems has decreased the complexity and costs of process development by allowing for concurrent studies of multiple bioreactor and media variables. However, the bioreactors’ small volumes (typically less than 250 mL) limit the volume of media one can extract for daily sampling. We describe a means to analyze spent media with an integrated microchip capillary electrophoresis mass spectrometer (CE-MS) analyzer with minimal sample volume requirements and rapid analysis time. The platform was evaluated with a parallel microbioreactor system (ambr® 250) culturing a Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell line stressed by varying levels of ammonia (NH3).
The spent media analysis identified net increases in the levels of the amino acids (AA) Ala, Arg, Asp, Glu, Gly, His, Ile, Leu, Lys, Phe, Thr, Trp, Tyr, and Val in all bioreactors, with Gly levels showing increases in excess of 8-fold initial levels in all bioreactors. Other media components either steadily decreased in concentration or were completely depleted by the end of culture. For example, Asn was depleted in all of the unstressed and 10 mM NH3-stressed bioreactors, but was approximately twice as high as the initial levels in the 30 mM NH3-stressed bioreactors at the end of the culture periods. Also, the 30 mM NH3-stressed condition may have caused either complete degradation or rapid consumption of choline, since it was no longer present starting at the t = 36 h sampling. Overall, the monitored media components were observed to have independent trajectories based on feeding and consumption by the cells, and depending on the stressed condition. The capability to have more frequent spent media analyses would allow for real-time observation of these process changes and associated control strategies.
Process characterization using qualified scale-down models (SDM) offers time and resource-saving advantages to companies developing biotherapeutics. Current approaches with glass benchtop bioreactors as SDMs have demonstrated the ability to predict process performance and product quality, but are throughput- limited by infrastructure that requires significant operational input, as well as large volumes of media and reagents. In this article, the Sartorius Stedim Biotech ambr®250 high-throughput, single-use mini bioreactor system will be discussed for its suitability as an SDM for process characterization.
While many risk analysis methods describe how execution or performance risks originate and propagate through pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical manufacturing processes and systems, few provide methods for efficiently estimating the uncertainty of an execution risk’s occurrence. This article describes prospective causal risk modeling (PCRM) for estimating the risk’s uncertainty of failures associated with executing processes, particularly when little process performance information or data is available. Building upon a basic unit of risk, the process-based system risk structure (SRS) approach is combined with PCRM to provide a method of carrying out quality risk management (QRM) exercises that properly assess both the severity and uncertainty of process execution risks. After the risks are structured using an SRS, PCRM provides a straightforward and effective method for using subjective human judgement and thought experiments to evaluate the risk process’s causal mechanisms for analyzing, evaluating, and controlling the uncertainty, including its likelihood of occurrence, of significant risks associated with developing and manufacturing pharmaceuticals. Using an SRS/PCRM-based QRM exercise, a wide variety of process execution risks can be efficiently evaluated and accepted or rejected so that important risks requiring mitigation can be identified for additional evaluation, control, and eventual acceptance.
It is a common belief that fetal bovine serum (FBS) collected from certain geographical regions, such as New Zealand, is of superior quality to material collected from South America. Whilst it is true that origin does have an impact on the price of serum, it does not affect the quality or biological performance of the product. FBS collected under similar conditions from any geographical region will demonstrate comparable ability to support cell growth. For FBS, the term “quality” is frequently confused with “health status.” It is the health status of the geographical region from which the serum is collected that will dictate its potential use, the availability of material for import, and eventually, the price. It should be noted that health status should be considered a result of more than just the geographical source of the material, but also the regulatory infrastructure and how well regulations are enforced by the countries within that region…
Since its inception in 2006, the International Serum Industry Association (ISIA) has been focused on providing a more informative characterization standard for animal sera. A fundamental aspect of this effort has been the development of a program focused on product traceability from abattoir to end-user. This goal has been achieved in part by implementing the ISIA-sponsored audit program. Serum vendors determined to be compliant with all audit requirements are awarded ISIA Traceability Certifications. In conjunction with Oritain Global Ltd, ISIA has developed and implemented a method for establishing geographical origin of serum products. The method and its capability of determining geographical origin are described in this paper…
This is the sixth and last in a series of articles describing and demystifying the processes involved in the gamma irradiation of serum. This serum treatment is intended to mitigate the risk of introducing adventitious contaminants into cell cultures. In this article, we discuss the regulatory environment under which gamma irradiation of serum is performed, and provide additional details on best practices for documentation of the irradiation process, selection of the contract irradiator, evaluation of risk versus benefit needed to arrive at the radiation dose range to be used, as well as an understanding of the level of remaining risk following irradiation at that dose range. Gamma irradiation should not be viewed as a means of totally eliminating risk, but rather as a means of reducing the risk of introducing adventitious agents into cell cultures. A balance must be achieved between the desire to eliminate all adventitious contaminants, and the need to retain the desired performance characteristics of the serum, once irradiated…
In the past 20 years, mammalian cell lines have been utilized to produce many viral veterinary vaccines. Cell lines such as baby hamster kidney (BHK)-21, Vero, and Madin Darby canine kidney (MDCK) are widely used because they help facilitate shorter manufacturing lead times and tighter process controls. As compared to other biotech products, viral vaccine manufacturing processes present some specific constraints linked to the cell substrates used. With the global veterinary vaccine market value predicted to be almost $7 billion per year by 2021[2], to remain competitively priced as well as profitable, bioprocess scientists are under pressure to develop methods for faster and more cost-efficient cell culture production. This has led to a shift from the use of expensive, two-dimensional T-flask and roller bottles to single-use, stirred tank bioreactors with microcarriers, or the adaptation of attachment-dependent cell lines such as BHK-21 for suspension culture. This requires time-consuming optimization and scale-up development experiments, which are real drawbacks. However, utilizing automated, single-use mini bioreactors as a scale-down model can enable more efficient use of time and optimization of media, feed, and culture conditions to de-risk upstream process development. In this article, single-use, mini bioreactors are evaluated to determine if they are geometrically comparable to benchtop bioreactors (both glass and single-use vessels) and pilot-scale, single-use bioreactors for effectively modelling mammalian cell culture at 2 L and 50 L scale…
Gamma irradiation is a well-established process for reducing or eliminating the bacterial and viral load in medical devices, biologics, and other products such as animal sera. This process can lead to alterations in both the materials being treated and the product containers in use. High-energy radiation produces ionization and excitation in materials, generating energy-rich ions which undergo dissociation, abstraction, and additional reactions in a sequence that may lead to chemical alterations. The resulting chemical stabilization process, which occurs during, immediately following, and occasionally days after irradiation, often leads to physical and chemical cross-linking or chain scission. The physical changes to materials can include embrittlement, discoloration, odor generation, stiffening, softening, and enhancement or changes in chemical structure. This paper discusses how and why irradiated polymeric materials, including those of biological origin, may change their structure and effectiveness during and after exposure to gamma irradiation, and the potential impact of these changes on serum during irradiation…