Biopurification of monoclonal antibody (mAb) through crystallisation

Therapeutics based on monoclonal antibody (mAb) represent the most advanced biopharmaceuticals, being able to treat a wide range of challenging diseases such as cancers and arthritis. As the scale of mAb production steadily increases with the demand for mAb-based therapeutics, the downstream biopurification continues to experience significant bottleneck due to the throughput limited nature of the current purification technology. Over the last decades, significant advances have been made in protein (and especially mAb) crystallisation as an alternative biopurification technology that offers high product stability and purity as well as scalability. This review starts with the discussion of general physicochemical properties of mAb before moving on to the in-depth discussion of the distinct phase behaviour of mAb in comparison with conventional globular proteins such as lysozyme. The final part of this review presents a summary of successful demonstrations of crystallisation scale-ups of mAb and discusses the critical factors (i.e. mixing and temperature control) to be considered.

Automated summary

The review discusses the advantages of mAb crystallisation as an alternative biopurification technology, highlighting its high product stability, purity, and scalability. Successful demonstrations of mAb crystallisation scale-ups are presented, with a focus on critical factors such as mixing and temperature control.