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Editors' Series: Analytical Tools for the Characterization of Biopharmaceuticals: Part II: Mass Spectrometry Detection

December 17th 2013

Proteins, monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) are powerful therapeutic agents. Because of their high molecular complexity, however, biopharmaceuticals may be quite sensitive to changes in the manufacturing processes that can lead to considerable micro-heterogeneity. As a result, a panel of separation techniques based on both liquid chromatography and electrophoresis has been used for their characterization and comparability studies. In terms of detection, mass spectrometry (MS) plays a pivotal role in the structural elucidation of biopharmaceuticals, because it offers an additional degree of separation by mass/charge ratio, greatly facilitating the characterization of variants. This two-part web seminar will discuss possibilities and limitations of chromatographic techniques and mass spectrometry detection for the physico-chemical characterization of biopharmaceutical compounds. Part II will focus on mass spectrometry techniques for the physico-chemical characterization of mAbs and related compounds. Classical MS analysis comprising intact mAb mass measurements, LC-MS analyses in reducing conditions or after deglycosylation treatment, and peptide mapping will be presented. The focus will be on enzymatic treatments that generate mAb fragments of smaller size that are more readily analyzable by MS techniques. In this presentation, some new trends in MS including native MS and ion mobility?MS (IM-MS) approaches will be also discussed. Finally, the benefits of high resolution native MS analysis will be explained.


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Editors Series': Analytical Tools for the Characterization of Biopharmaceuticals: Part 1: Chromatographic Methods

December 17th 2013

Proteins, monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) are powerful therapeutic agents. Because of their high molecular complexity, however, biopharmaceuticals may be quite sensitive to changes in the manufacturing processes that can lead to considerable micro-heterogeneity. As a result, a panel of separation techniques based on both liquid chromatography and electrophoresis has been used for their characterization and comparability studies. In terms of detection, mass spectrometry (MS) plays a pivotal role in the structural elucidation of biopharmaceuticals, because it offers an additional degree of separation by mass/charge ratio, greatly facilitating the characterization of variants. This two-part web seminar will discuss possibilities and limitations of chromatographic techniques and mass spectrometry detection for the physico-chemical characterization of biopharmaceutical compounds. Part I will focus on chromatographic techniques used for the physico-chemical characterization of biopharmaceutical compounds. Historically, ion exchange chromatography (IEX) and size exclusion chromatography (SEC) were the reference techniques. In this presentation, some new trends in IEX and SEC will be explained. However, because reversed-phase liquid chromatography is naturally more compatible with MS, the talk will focus on the potential of state-of-the-art UHPLC instruments and reversed-phase LC columns (sub-2?m wide-pore porous particles or core-shell particles) for biopharmaceutical characterization.