Development of robust antibody purification by optimizing protein-A chromatography in combination with precipitation methodologies

To be administered to patients, therapeutic monoclonal antibodies must have very high purity, with process related impurities like host-cell proteins (HCPs) and DNA reduced to <100 ppm and <10 ppb, respectively, relative to desired product. Traditionally, Protein-A chromatography as a capture step has been the work horse for clearing a large proportion of these impurities. However, remaining levels of process and product related impurities still present significant challenges on the development of polishing steps further downstream. In this study, we have incorporated high throughput screening to evaluate three areas of separation: (i) Harvest treatment; (ii) Protein-A Chromatography; and (iii) Low pH Viral Inactivation. Precipitation with low pH treatment of cell culture harvest resulted in selective removal of impurities while manipulating the pH of wash buffers used in Protein-A chromatography and incorporating wash additives that disrupt various modes of protein-protein interaction resulted in further and more pronounced reduction in impurity levels. In addition, our study also demonstrate that optimizing the neutralization pH post Protein-A elution can result in selective removal of impurities. When applied over multiple mAbs, this optimization method proved to be very robust and the strategy provides a new and improved purification process that reduces process related impurities like HCPs and DNA to drug substance specifications with just one chromatography column and open avenues for significant decrease in operating costs in monoclonal antibody purification.