Challenges in Chromatography
Processing times can be reduced and yields increased by utilizing new hydrophobic interaction chromatography tools
By Dr Nandu Deorkar at Avantor
Advances in protein and peptide engineering continue, enabling the creation of new biological products with improved therapeutic and diagnostic potential. Bringing these promising biologics to market effectively depends, in part, on solving significant downstream purification process challenges – such as separation of closely related impurities – that are the result of the increased complexity of producing these biologics.
Platform-based chromatographic approaches have been successful in separating and purifying monoclonal antibody products, but the newer generations of biologics feature different hurdles for purification process developers to overcome. Product- and process-related impurities, including host cell protein, aggregates, and charge and glycosylation variants, are persistent and often difficult to separate. As a result, process developers are increasingly exploring mixed-mode and multimode chromatographic media to achieve these separations.