Qualification of Raw Materials Used in the Manufacturing of Cellular Therapies

Presented by Jim Richardson, Sr Scientific Liaison at United States Pharmacopeia Dr. Richardson works in the standards pipeline development group within Global Biologics at USP, leading efforts to develop standards for emerging technologies such as cell and gene therapy. In previous roles at Advanced BioScience Laboratories and Foundation Fighting Blindness, he led translational science activities for the development of vaccines and biologics to prevent and treat infectious and retinal diseases. Trained as a virologist, Jim has also held positions responsible for performing viral clearance testing at Viromed Biosafety and AAV vector development and characterization at Genovo/Targeted Genetics. Dr. Richardson earned his Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Followed by Viral Safety Aspects of Raw Materials Used in the Production of Biologics Including Cellular Therapy Products Presented by Horst Ruppach, Ph.D. Scientific Director Viral Safety at Charles River's Biologics Testing Solutions After a short review of regulations/guidance related to viral safety aspects of raw materials the in principle concept for ensuring viral safety will be outlined. The viral risk profile of a raw material is defined based on the source material, the sourcing process and the subsequent manufacturing and/or purification process. Testing for viruses performed on the start material and/or process intermediates is one way to mitigate the viral risk. Different methods for testing will be presented and the pros and cons discussed. Analyzing the viral clearance capacity of the manufacturing process is another important strategy to reduce the viral risk significantly if applicable. There are, however, experimental challenges sometimes which makes it difficult to demonstrate efficient viral clearance even though the treatment is known to be highly efficient.