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Wachter S, Angevin T, Bubna N, Tan A, Cichy A, Brown D, Wolfe LS, Sappington R, Lilla E, Berry L, Grismer D, Orth C, Blanusa M, Mostafa S, Kaufmann H, Felderer K. Application of platform process development approaches to the manufacturing of Mabcalin™ bispecifics. J Biotechnol 2023; 377:13-22. [PMID: 37820750 DOI: 10.1016/j.jbiotec.2023.10.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/23/2023] [Revised: 09/28/2023] [Accepted: 10/06/2023] [Indexed: 10/13/2023]
Abstract
Bispecific biotherapeutics offer potent and highly specific treatment options in oncology and immuno-oncology. However, many bispecific formats are prone to high levels of aggregation and instability, leading to prolonged development timelines, inefficient manufacturing, and high costs. The novel class of Mabcalin™ molecules consist of Anticalin® proteins fused to an IgG and are currently being evaluated in pre-clinical and clinical studies. Here, we describe a robust high-yield manufacturing platform for these therapeutic fusion proteins providing data up to commercially relevant scales. A platform upstream process was established for one of the Mabcalin bispecifics and then applied to other clinically relevant drug candidates with different IgG target specificities. Process performance was compared in 3 L bioreactors and production was scaled-up to up to 1000 L for confirmation. The Mabcalin proteins' structural and biophysical similarities enabled a downstream platform approach consisting of initial protein A capture, viral inactivation, mixed-mode anion exchange polishing, second polishing by cation exchange or hydrophobic interaction chromatography, viral filtration, buffer exchange and concentration by ultrafiltration/diafiltration. All three processes met their target specifications and achieved comparable clearance of impurities and product yields across scales. The described platform approach provides a fast and economic path to process confirmation and is well comparable to classical monoclonal antibody approaches in terms of costs and time to clinic.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stefanie Wachter
- Pieris Pharmaceuticals GmbH, Zeppelinstr. 3, Hallbergmoos 85399 Germany.
| | - Thibaut Angevin
- Pieris Pharmaceuticals GmbH, Zeppelinstr. 3, Hallbergmoos 85399 Germany
| | - Niket Bubna
- KBI Biopharma, 4117 Emperor Blvd, Suite 200, Durham, NC 27703, USA
| | - Adelene Tan
- Pieris Pharmaceuticals GmbH, Zeppelinstr. 3, Hallbergmoos 85399 Germany
| | - Adam Cichy
- Pieris Pharmaceuticals GmbH, Zeppelinstr. 3, Hallbergmoos 85399 Germany
| | - David Brown
- KBI Biopharma, 4117 Emperor Blvd, Suite 200, Durham, NC 27703, USA
| | - Leslie S Wolfe
- KBI Biopharma, 4117 Emperor Blvd, Suite 200, Durham, NC 27703, USA
| | - Ryan Sappington
- KBI Biopharma, 4117 Emperor Blvd, Suite 200, Durham, NC 27703, USA
| | - Edward Lilla
- KBI Biopharma, 4117 Emperor Blvd, Suite 200, Durham, NC 27703, USA
| | - Luke Berry
- KBI Biopharma, 4117 Emperor Blvd, Suite 200, Durham, NC 27703, USA
| | - Dane Grismer
- KBI Biopharma, 4117 Emperor Blvd, Suite 200, Durham, NC 27703, USA
| | - Christian Orth
- Pieris Pharmaceuticals GmbH, Zeppelinstr. 3, Hallbergmoos 85399 Germany
| | - Milan Blanusa
- Pieris Pharmaceuticals GmbH, Zeppelinstr. 3, Hallbergmoos 85399 Germany
| | - Sigma Mostafa
- KBI Biopharma, 4117 Emperor Blvd, Suite 200, Durham, NC 27703, USA
| | - Hitto Kaufmann
- Pieris Pharmaceuticals GmbH, Zeppelinstr. 3, Hallbergmoos 85399 Germany
| | - Karin Felderer
- Pieris Pharmaceuticals GmbH, Zeppelinstr. 3, Hallbergmoos 85399 Germany
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Zielonka S, Krah S, Arras P, Lipinski B, Zimmermann J, Boje AS, Klausz K, Peipp M, Pekar L. Affinity Maturation of the Natural Ligand (B7-H6) for Natural Cytotoxicity Receptor NKp30 by Yeast Surface Display. Methods Mol Biol 2023; 2681:231-248. [PMID: 37405651 DOI: 10.1007/978-1-0716-3279-6_13] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/06/2023]
Abstract
In recent years, the development of bispecific antibodies (bsAbs) has experienced tremendous progress for disease treatment, and consequently, a plethora of bsAbs is currently scrutinized in clinical trials. Besides antibody scaffolds, multifunctional molecules referred to as immunoligands have been developed. These molecules typically harbor a natural ligand entity for the engagement of a specific receptor, while binding to the additional antigen is facilitated by an antibody-derived paratope. Immunoligands can be exploited to conditionally activate immune cells, e.g., natural killer (NK) cells, in the presence of tumor cells, ultimately causing target-dependent tumor cell lysis. However, many ligands naturally show only moderate affinities toward their cognate receptor, potentially hampering killing capacities of immunoligands. Herein, we provide protocols for yeast surface display-based affinity maturation of B7-H6, the natural ligand of NK cell-activating receptor NKp30.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stefan Zielonka
- Protein Engineering and Antibody Technologies (PEAT), Merck Healthcare KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany
- Institute for Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
| | - Simon Krah
- Protein Engineering and Antibody Technologies (PEAT), Merck Healthcare KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany
| | - Paul Arras
- Protein Engineering and Antibody Technologies (PEAT), Merck Healthcare KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany
| | - Britta Lipinski
- Protein Engineering and Antibody Technologies (PEAT), Merck Healthcare KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany
- Institute for Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
| | - Jasmin Zimmermann
- Protein Engineering and Antibody Technologies (PEAT), Merck Healthcare KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany
- Institute for Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
| | - Ammelie Svea Boje
- Stem Cell Transplantation and Immunotherapy, Division of Antibody-Based Immunotherapy, Department of Medicine II, Christian Albrechts University Kiel and University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Kiel, Germany
| | - Katja Klausz
- Stem Cell Transplantation and Immunotherapy, Division of Antibody-Based Immunotherapy, Department of Medicine II, Christian Albrechts University Kiel and University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Kiel, Germany
| | - Matthias Peipp
- Stem Cell Transplantation and Immunotherapy, Division of Antibody-Based Immunotherapy, Department of Medicine II, Christian Albrechts University Kiel and University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Kiel, Germany
| | - Lukas Pekar
- Protein Engineering and Antibody Technologies (PEAT), Merck Healthcare KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.
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Gong D, Riley TP, Bzymek KP, Correia AR, Li D, Spahr C, Robinson JH, Case RB, Wang Z, Garces F. Rational selection of building blocks for the assembly of bispecific antibodies. MAbs 2021; 13:1870058. [PMID: 33397191 PMCID: PMC7808324 DOI: 10.1080/19420862.2020.1870058] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Bispecific antibodies, engineered to recognize two targets simultaneously, demonstrate exceptional clinical potential for the therapeutic intervention of complex diseases. However, these molecules are often composed of multiple polypeptide chains of differing sequences. To meet industrial scale productivity, enforcing the correct quaternary assembly of these chains is critical. Here, we describe Chain Selectivity Assessment (CSA), a high-throughput method to rationally select parental monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to make bispecific antibodies requiring correct heavy/light chain pairing. By deploying CSA, we have successfully identified mAbs that exhibit a native preference toward cognate chain pairing that enables the production of hetero-IgGs without additional engineering. Furthermore, CSA also identified rare light chains (LCs) that permit positive binding of the non-cognate arm in the common LC hetero-IgGs, also without engineering. This rational selection of parental mAbs with favorable developability characteristics is critical to the successful development of bispecific molecules with optimal manufacturability properties.
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Affiliation(s)
- Danyang Gong
- Department of Therapeutics Discovery, Amgen Research, Amgen Inc ., Thousand Oaks, CA USA
| | - Timothy P Riley
- Department of Therapeutics Discovery, Amgen Research, Amgen Inc ., Thousand Oaks, CA USA
| | - Krzysztof P Bzymek
- Department of Therapeutics Discovery, Amgen Research, Amgen Inc ., Thousand Oaks, CA USA
| | - Ana R Correia
- Department of Therapeutics Discovery, Amgen Research, Amgen Inc ., Thousand Oaks, CA USA
| | - Danqing Li
- Department of Therapeutics Discovery, Amgen Research, Amgen Inc ., Thousand Oaks, CA USA
| | - Christopher Spahr
- Department of Therapeutics Discovery, Amgen Research, Amgen Inc ., Thousand Oaks, CA USA
| | - John H Robinson
- Department of Therapeutics Discovery, Amgen Research, Amgen Inc ., Thousand Oaks, CA USA
| | - Ryan B Case
- Department of Therapeutics Discovery, Amgen Research, Amgen Inc ., San Francisco, CA USA
| | - Zhulun Wang
- Department of Therapeutics Discovery, Amgen Research, Amgen Inc ., San Francisco, CA USA
| | - Fernando Garces
- Department of Therapeutics Discovery, Amgen Research, Amgen Inc ., Thousand Oaks, CA USA
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Brennan FR, Andrews L, Arulanandam AR, Blumel J, Fikes J, Grimaldi C, Lansita J, Loberg LI, MacLachlan T, Milton M, Parker S, Tibbitts J, Wolf J, Allamneni KP. Current strategies in the non-clinical safety assessment of biologics: New targets, new molecules, new challenges. Regul Toxicol Pharmacol 2018; 98:98-107. [PMID: 30026135 DOI: 10.1016/j.yrtph.2018.07.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/02/2018] [Accepted: 07/14/2018] [Indexed: 01/07/2023]
Abstract
Nonclinical safety testing of biopharmaceuticals can present significant challenges to human risk assessment with these innovative and often complex drugs. Emerging topics in this field were discussed recently at the 2016 Annual US BioSafe General Membership meeting. The presentations and subsequent discussions from the main sessions are summarized. The topics covered included: (i) specialty biologics (oncolytic virus, gene therapy, and gene editing-based technologies), (ii) the value of non-human primates (NHPs) for safety assessment, (iii) challenges in the safety assessment of immuno-oncology drugs (T cell-dependent bispecifics, checkpoint inhibitors, and costimulatory agonists), (iv) emerging therapeutic approaches and modalities focused on microbiome, oligonucleotide, messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) therapeutics, (v) first in human (FIH) dose selection and the minimum anticipated biological effect level (MABEL), (vi) an update on current regulatory guidelines, International Council for Harmonization (ICH) S1, S3a, S5, S9 and S11 and (vii) breakout sessions that focused on bioanalytical and PK/PD challenges with bispecific antibodies, cytokine release in nonclinical studies, determining adversity and NOAEL for biologics, the value of second species for toxicology assessment and what to do if there is no relevant toxicology species.
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