Learn more about studying nucleation rates and purification in antibodies, where material is limited or expensive.
The use of biotherapeutics has significantly increased in recent years. Half of the new approvals each year are monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) treatments, notably in the vaccine for COVID-19.
However, the manufacturing costs for biotherapeutics are significantly higher than traditional small molecule actives. One reason is the isolation process. This is typically done by chromatography, with up to 80% using the more expensive affinity chromatography to isolate products. This can result in a treatment cost in the range of tens of thousands of pounds.
In the isolation and purification of small molecules, crystallization is commonly used, as it is a more cost-effective process. This is not always possible with biologics due to the large molecular size and flexibility, coupled with the complexity of multicomponent mixtures which make crystallization difficult.
Nevertheless, well designed template particles can offer a way for isolating by crystallization of large molecules reducing the cost of production and manufacturing. This application note presents a method developed for studying nucleation of antibodies using the CrystalBreeder instrument.
Content overview:
- Purification of Antibodies by Crystallization
- Experimental Design
- Induction Time and Nucleation rate
- Conclusions
