New Tools to Assess the Risk of Microbial Impurities in the Pharmaceutical...

Full Title: New Tools to Assess the Risk of Microbial Impurities in the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Process Large scale Production of Biologics is susceptible to microbial contamination because many manufacturing steps occur under non-sterile conditions in aqueous systems at ambient temperature or 2-8 °C under substantially neutral pH conditions. Regardless of where in the Drug Substance (DS) manufacture (manufacture of the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient), or Drug Product (DP) manufacture (manufacture of the Final Drug, e.g. formulated mAbs filled in vials or syringes) they occur, microbial contaminations can have a significant impact on product quality and patient safety. Even after bioburden removal by 0.2 µm filtration subcellular microbial components like toxins, lipopeptide/lipoproteins, flagellin, bacterial and fungal DNA, cell wall polysaccharides, extracellular proteases or endoglycosidases remain in the product. Those microbial components potentially lead to toxic, allergic or inflammatory responses in humans. Monocyte Activation Test: a powerful tool to assess pyrogenic risk in pharmaceutical process Microbial risk in pharmaceutical process is not limited to viable microorganisms. Subcellular components from microorganisms remaining from the production process can be source of pyrogens, compromising product quality and patient safety as these substances are not eliminated by classical filtration or sterilization steps. According to the European Pharmacopeia, chapter 5.1.10, a risk assessment has to be performed to justify the method to be used for pyrogen detection: bacterial endotoxin testing is not sufficient if the presence of non-endotoxin pyrogens in the production process cannot be excluded.The Monocyte Activation Test (MAT) can detect both endotoxin and non-endotoxin pyrogens in one test. Supported by many regulatory bodies, the robust MAT assay provides sensitive results based on the human immune reaction and can be a powerful