CDMO Blog

Cryopreservation is the process of using ultra-low temperatures to preserve living cells and tissues for a prolonged time period.

Stemming (pun intended) from the fundamental question in developmental biology around whether cellular differentiation could be reversed – like many transformative scientific discoveries – identification of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) was a curiosity-induced accident. In their foundational 2006 study, Takahashi and Yamanaka determined that fully differentiated adult skin cells could be reprogrammed back into stem cells by the over-expression of four genes (Oct3/4, Sox2, Klf4, c-Myc).

Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) studies are essential for generating nonclinical study data supporting drug product submissions or applications for human use. According to the most basic definition, GLP is a set of principles that can be applied to ensure the quality and integrity of non-clinical laboratory studies. GLP provides a means to standardize the results of pre-clinical studies that come from different labs, in part by imposing increased documentation requirements based on standard procedures. Standardization is the driving force behind GLP.

We are often asked if culture media development can be customized at the discovery stage of the product, and if feasible, how it can be done. In this post, we will outline one approach that can be considered to customize media development for discovery-based processes.

When we think about cell and gene therapies (CGTs) what most often comes to mind is the early stage scientific innovation responsible for finding new ways to treat diseases. A lot of complex research and testing is performed to confirm Proof of Concept and that the therapy performs as desired. 

Cellular immunotherapies (e.g. CAR-T cells) are primarily used as an autologous therapy to treat cancer. As such, these therapies are currently generated in small batches for each patient. To generate enough modified cells for a single treatment, cells are expanded in volumes from 1-10 L. In the final step of downstream processing (DSP) for immunotherapies, cells cultured in large volumes must be concentrated and reformulated into smaller volumes (e.g. 20-100 mL) suitable for delivery to patients.

In an introductory post on lentiviral vector (LVV) manufacturing for cell and gene therapies (CGTs) we touched upon the challenges with transfection-based protocols for producing LVVs at large scale. Here we will take a closer look at the use of stable producer cell lines as an alternative to transient transfection for the manufacture of LVVs.

In Part 1 of our series on lentiviral vector (LVV) manufacturing we covered scale-up of upstream processing steps. In this post we will look at the key steps in downstream processing (DSP). The industry “gold-standard” for recovery of purified and concentrated LVV is 10-20 percent. Improving on this low recovery is an opportunity to reduce the cost of manufacturing and get viral vectors into the hands of researchers who need them.

Compliance with quality control (QC) standards is a basic requirement for products manufactured under good manufacturing practices (GMP) conditions. In this post we will explore the main compendial QC tests that ensure cell and gene therapies are safe for use in patients, and important considerations for integrating QC testing into the manufacturing process.

Lentiviral vectors (LVV) are a key component in the production of cell and gene therapies. They are most often used to deliver genetic material that will modify cells and confer therapeutic properties. Today, even with the proliferation of cell and gene therapies in development, LVV is still produced using legacy methods employed in basic research. Overcoming technical challenges in the scale-up of LVV production is a major focus for the industry. Scalable LVV production platforms are critical for manufacturing affordable cell and gene therapies and making them more widely available. For an overview of LVV manufacturing and process optimization considerations see our previous post.