Author Archives: Brian Gazaille

eBook: Working Together Is Key to Bioprocess Sustainability

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Sustainability initiatives are launching across the biopharmaceutical industry as companies begin to scrutinize their environmental impacts as part of the growing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) movement in business. Achieving ambitious sustainability goals will require organizations to evaluate their raw materials, production processes, product packaging, operations, and supply and distribution chains — and such work will entail monumental effort. As this special eBook presentation from the editors of BioProcess International and BioProcess Insider demonstrates, bioprocess sustainability necessitates collaboration across the…

Introduction: Cell-Line Development Discussions at Biotech Week Boston

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The genetic sequence of the Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell line first was published just over a decade ago (1, 2). As with the Human Genome Project, genomic knowledge of that and other biopharmaceutical production cell lines — both animal and microbial — has expanded greatly alongside dramatic increases in computing power (3–5). Meanwhile new and improved genetic engineering techniques have offered the potential for targeted rather than random integration of transgenes into production cells. And regulators began to emphasize…

April 20, 2023

eBook: Bioprocess Monitoring — Still on the Path to Dynamic Control

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The biopharmaceutical industry agrees that process analytical technologies (PATs) and automation will improve process consistency, enhance biologic quality, reduce production costs, and accelerate workflows. However, technologies for on- and in-line bioprocess monitoring generally remain in process development laboratories rather than being used on the manufacturing floor. Some difficulties stem from limitations with current sensing methods and technologies. Other problems relate to implementation and integration of existing information-technology (IT) solutions. And still other concerns arise when company leaders need to make…

March 15, 2023

eBook: Cell Therapy — Lessons Learned from Working with Vectors and Cells

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Gene-modified cell therapies hold much promise for cancer treatment. Currently, the most popular approach leverages T cells expressing chimeric antigen receptors (CARs), which give immune cells the specificity needed to bind with and destroy malignancies. Despite rapid progress in drug discovery and development, the biopharmaceutical industry still has much to learn about manufacturing CAR T-cell therapies in commercially feasible ways. In this eBook, BPI’s managing editor speaks with subject-matter experts from VIVEbiotech, Castle Creek Biosciences, and Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS)…

January 31, 2023

Cell Therapy — Supply Chain Discussions

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The 2017 approval of Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel) has paved the way for other cell therapy products to reach the patients who need them. Each passing year promises to open the regulatory floodgates to more product approvals, but technical and manufacturing issues continue to keep initially high expectations from being realized. One barrier is supply chain complexity, especially for the subset of autologous cell therapies. This eBook features expert commentary from Be The Match BioTherapies, a company providing more than 50 product…

December 15, 2022

Surveying the Biosimilars Regulatory Landscape

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BPI’s history coincides with that of biosimilars development. Although nonpeptide biosimilar products did not begin receiving commercial authorization until the 2010s, health authorities and drug makers already had been exploring the complex concept of biosimilarity. In the May issue of BPI’s first volume, Theresa L. Gerrard (then an independent consultant who also had been director of the Division of Cytokine Biology at the US Food and Drug Administration Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, FDA CBER) wrote: The potential for…

August 19, 2022

eBook: Factors Affecting Scalability of Cell Therapies

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The number of cell and gene therapies in different phases of development is increasing. The industry currently needs to increase commercial good manufacturing practice (GMP) capacity to keep up with current and future demands. Cell and gene therapy scale-up from clinical to commercial capacity levels can reduce cost of goods and thus price per dose.  An optimized bioprocess facilitates scale-up from hundreds (clinical scale) to thousands of doses (commercial scale). Different approaches for increasing scale can be taken. For example,…

July 25, 2022

Flexible Vaccine Manufacturing: Collaborations Bringing Localized Solutions

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The COVID-19 pandemic has become the most recent reminder of how accessibility to drugs and vaccines depends heavily on geographical location and a country’s economic health. Some countries continue to lack the infrastructure, regulatory support, and trained workforce necessary for establishing a viable bioindustry. Unizima, part of the Univercells Group, is a team of experts, scientists, and engineers that partners with public and private companies and other organizations to help build biomanufacturing capabilities in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We…

June 24, 2022

Developing Subunit Vaccines Based on an Amphiphile Platform

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Subunit vaccines stimulate immune cells by delivering selected components of a pathogen of interest rather than the entire pathogen. Elicio Therapeutics is developing subunit vaccines that target a recipient’s lymph node to elicit a robust immune response. The vaccines are based on the company’s amphiphile (AMP) platform (Figure 1). The platform-based drug candidates are targeting cancer and COVID-19. Their development would allow the vaccine to be stored without the need for ultracold and cold storage. Below, we discuss the development…

June 24, 2022

Development of Allergen Immunotherapies

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Desentum, a biopharmaceutical company that specializes in developing allergen immunotherapy (AIT) products, has partnered with contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) Biovian to advance hypoallergens based on targeted modifications to recombinant proteins. I spoke with Kati Sallinen (director of strategy and communications at Desentum) and Jonne Vaarno (project manager at Biovian) about their companies’ development of AITs and a potential platform to treat different types of allergies. Our Discussion We all know someone with an allergy, and many people have…

June 24, 2022