A comprehensive strategy for the identification of biologics by liquid-chromatography-mass spectrometry for release testing in a regulated environment.

Identification (ID) testing is a regulatory requirement for biopharmaceutical manufacturing, requiring robust, GMP-qualified assays that can distinguish the therapeutic from any other in the facility. Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS) is a powerful analytical tool used to identify and characterize biologics. While routinely leveraged for characterization, LC-MS is relatively rare in Quality Control (QC) settings due to its perceived complexity and scarcity of MS-trained personnel. However, employing LC-MS for identification of drug products has many advantages versus conventional ID techniques, including but not limited to its high specificity, rapid turn-around time, and ease of method execution. In this work, we outline the development and implementation of a comprehensive LC-MS based ID strategy for biologics release testing. Two main workflows (WFs) were developed: i) WF1, a subunit-based assay measuring the molecular weight of the light chain (LC) and heavy chain (HC) of an antibody upon reduction, and ii) WF2, intact mass measurement of the biologic upon N-deglycosylation by PNGase F. The proposed strategy is shown to be applicable for over 40 diverse model biologics including monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), biobetters such as antibody prodrugs/afucosylated mAbs, fusion proteins, multi-specific antibodies, Fabs, and large peptides, all with excellent mass accuracy (error typically < 20 ppm) and precision. It requires a single-step sample preparation and a single click to run and process the data upon method setup. This strategy has been successfully implemented for release testing in GMP labs. Challenges and considerations for the establishment of QC-friendly methods are discussed. It is also shown that these methods can be applied to the ID of more analytically complex biotherapeutics, such as fixed-dose combination (FDC) and drug products co-formulated with trace-level additives.

Drug-to-antibody determination for an antibody-drug-conjugate utilizing cathepsin B digestion coupled with reversed-phase high-pressure liquid chromatography analysis.

Antibody drug conjugates or ADCs are currently being evaluated for their effectiveness as targeted chemotherapeutic agents across the pharmaceutical industry. Due to the complexity arising from the choice of antibody, drug and linker; analytical methods for release and stability testing are required to provide a detailed understanding of both the antibody and the drug during manufacturing and storage. The ADC analyzed in this work consists of a tubulysin drug analogue that is randomly conjugated to lysine residues in a human IgG1 antibody. The drug is attached to the lysine residue through a peptidic, hydrolytically stable, cathepsin B cleavable linker. The random lysine conjugation produces a heterogeneous mixture of conjugated species with a variable drug-to-antibody ratio (DAR), therefore, the average amount of drug attached to the antibody is a critical parameter that needs to be monitored. In this work we have developed a universal method for determining DAR in ADCs that employ a cathepsin B cleavable linker. The ADC is first cleaved at the hinge region and then mildly reduced prior to treatment with the cathepsin B enzyme to release the drug from the antibody fragments. This pre-treatment allows the cathepsin B enzyme unrestricted access to the cleavage sites and ensures optimal conditions for the cathepsin B to cleave all the drug from the ADC molecule. The cleaved drug is then separated from the protein components by reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) and quantitated using UV absorbance. This method affords superior cleavage efficiency to other methods that only employ a cathepsin digestion step as confirmed by mass spectrometry analysis. This method was shown to be accurate and precise for the quantitation of the DAR for two different random lysine conjugated ADC molecules.

A simple reversed phase high-performance liquid chromatography method for polysorbate 80 quantitation in monoclonal antibody drug products.

In this paper, we discuss an improved high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method for the quantitation of polysorbate 80 (polyoxyethylenesorbitan monooleate), a commonly used stabilizing excipient in therapeutic drug solutions. This method is performed by quantitation of oleic acid, a hydrolysis product of polysorbate 80. Using base hydrolysis, polysorbate 80 releases the oleic acid at a 1:1 molar ratio. The oleic acid can then be separated from other polysorbate 80 hydrolysis products and matrices using reversed phase HPLC. The oleic acid is monitored without derivatization using the absorbance at 195 nm. The method was validated and also shown to be accurate for the quantitation of polysorbate 80 in a high protein concentration monoclonal antibody drug product. For the measured polysorbate 80 concentrations, the repeatability was less than 6.2% relative standard deviation of the mean (% RSD) with the day-to-day intermediate precision being less than 8.2% RSD. The accuracy of the oleic acid quantitation averaged 94-109% in different IgG(1) and IgG(4) drug solutions with variable polysorbate 80 concentrations. In this study, polyoxyethylene, a by-product of the polysorbate 80 hydrolysis was also identified. This peak was not identified by previous methods and also increased proportionally to the polysorbate 80 concentration. We have developed and qualified a method which uses common equipment found in most laboratories and is usable over a range of monoclonal antibody subclasses and protein concentrations.

Evaluation of oligosaccharide methods for carbohydrate analysis in a fully human monoclonal antibody and comparison of the results to the monosaccharide composition determination by a novel calculation.

Carbohydrates can change a drug's properties including solubility, affinity towards antigen, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. Due to this importance, carbohydrate composition is utilized as a parameter to evaluate a drug candidate's quality. In this study, the compositional monosaccharides of a drug candidate are measured by HPAEC-PAD, while the oligosaccharides are studied by HPAEC-PAD, CE-LIF and LC-MS. The advantages and limitations of these various approaches for oligosaccharide analysis are reviewed in this work. While the methods used for oligosaccharide analysis are well established we have devised a new and novel calculation for determining monosaccharide content using the relative percentages of the N-glycans. This calculation was used to evaluate the accuracy of the oligosaccharide determination methods by comparison of the N-glycan data to the experimental monosaccharide data. The results obtained from this novel calculation demonstrate that the relative abundance of carbohydrates as determined from these various approaches are consistent.

C-terminal lysine variants in fully human monoclonal antibodies: investigation of test methods and possible causes.

The C-terminal lysine variation is commonly observed in biopharmaceutical monoclonal antibodies. This modification can be important since it is found to be sensitive to the production process. The methods commonly used to probe this charge variation, including IEF, cIEF, ion-exchange chromatography, and LC-MS, were evaluated for their ability to effectively approximate relative percentages of lysine variants. A monoclonal antibody produced in a B cell hybridoma versus a CHO cell transfectoma was examined and it was determined that the relative amount of incorporated C-terminal lysine can vary greatly between these two production schemes. Another case study is shown whereby a different monoclonal antibody is subject to some minor process changes and the extent of lysine variation also exhibits a significant difference. During these studies the different methods for determining the extent of variation were evaluated and it was determined that LC-MS after trypsin digestion provides reproducible relative percentage information and has significant advantages over other methods. The final section of this work investigates the possible origins of this modification and evidence is shown that carboxypeptidase B or another basic carboxypeptidase causes this variation.