Recombinant adeno-associated viral (rAAV) vectors have proven to be efficient vehicles for gene transfer in animal models. The attractive features of this vector system are long-term gene expression with little or no associated toxicities following administration to a variety of tissues. Previous and ongoing clinical trials in humans demonstrate a very good over-all safety profile. However, one of the caveats of this work that has been carried out by several laboratories is the inability to normalize vector doses administered by different investigators to animals and humans. Most of the work to date has involved AAV serotype2 vectors, but vector systems based on other AAV serotypes are being rapidly developed…
Tag: <span>stability testing</span>
As pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies become more global in nature with products that have the potential to reach into the worldwide marketplace, a special understanding is needed of the requirements that are specific to varying geographical areas. Specifically, the regions for worldwide pharmaceutical distribution can be broken into America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, with each region presenting its own regulation and technical challenges. There are many issues that are common among these regions, but each region’s focus may be different. Typically, an issue arises in one region and then migrates to another as people become aware of the issues and concerns. For example, the use of prefilled syringe systems in Europe and Asia has migrated to the American marketplace, amounting to a more significant volume…
The approval of a new biological drug for therapeutic use requires supporting data from a variety of studies, including those that demonstrate the suitability of the manufacturing process. The regulatory guidance advocates that one of these studies address the issue of cell substrate stability by testing for consistent production of the product of interest by a characterised cell bank, generally the working cell bank (WCB). The study should evaluate stability during cultivation for production by examining a minimum of two time points — at a minimal number of population doublings and at or beyond the limit of in vitro cell age for production. The guidelines state that, “Evaluation of the cell substrate with respect to the consistent production of the intended product of interest should be the primary subject of concern”…