Pharmaceutical Compounding and Development of Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products: From Bench to Bedside

A special issue of Pharmaceutics (ISSN 1999-4923). This special issue belongs to the section "Clinical Pharmaceutics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2025 | Viewed by 1289

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Hematology, University Medical Center Groningen, 9713 GZ Groningen, The Netherlands
Interests: oncology; hematology; immunology; immunotherapy; antibody engineering; cell biology; tumor microenvironment; viral vectors; CAR T cells; point-of-care manufacturing; manufacturing processes; T cell metabolism and phenotypes; quality control testing

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Guest Editor
Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacology, University Medical Center Groningen, 9713 GZ Groningen, The Netherlands
Interests: hospital pharmacy; pharmacology; pharmacokinetics; pharmacodynamic; good manufacturing practices (GMP); manufacturing processes; point-of-care manufacturing; regulatory aspects; CAR T cells; T cell metabolism and phenotypes; culture media and supplements

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Guest Editor
Immunotherapy, Immunology department, CDB, Hospital Clinic de Barcelona, 08036 Barcelona, Spain
Interests: good manufacturing practices (GMP); process development and manufacturing processes; point-of-care manufacturing; ATMPS regulation; oncology; immunology; immunotherapy; CAR T cells; T cell engineering; tumor microenvironment; viral vectors and plasmids; upstream and downstream process; quality control release testing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) are at the forefront of innovation and translational research and have transformed the clinical landscape. Based on gene, somatic-cell, and tissue-engineering therapy, these medicinal products have demonstrated potential to treat and cure patients for whom conventional medicine is not effective. Academic centers are major contributors to translational research and the development of ATMPs, such as therapies with viral vectors, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells, and tumor-infiltrating T cells (TILs). Despite their rapid development and increasing marketing authorization, challenges remain in terms of their development and clinical translation from bench to bedside, particularly within academia.

Regarding good manufacturing practices (GMP), the tech transfer of the production process may be challenging due to regulatory guidelines differing between competent authorities and the use of biological and non-compendial raw and starting materials. Furthermore, the advent of point-of-care or decentralized manufacturing practices for ATMPs requires harmonized practices across different manufacturing sites. Although a highly defined product is desired, batch standardization can be challenging since variations in the starting material (e.g., donor variability) and manufacturing process (e.g., duration, culture media) significantly impact product characteristics. Thus, particularly for point-of-care-manufactured ATMPs, demonstrating product comparability for products manufactured at different sites (potentially in different countries) is a challenge. Finally, pharmacokinetic–pharmacodynamic (PKPD) studies and elucidating the mechanism of action of ATMPs are complex, since these therapies are considered ‘living drugs’ and interact dynamically with their host.

The aim of this Special Issue is to highlight the development of ATMPs from a broad perspective, with a focus on pharmaceutical compounding and manufacturing processes. We invite authors to submit reviews and original articles on topics including the development of novel ATMPs; the optimization and validation of ATMP manufacturing processes; novel quality control tests; GMP technology transfer; point-of-care manufacturing; drug product characterization; comparability; hospital exemption; in vitro–in vivo correlation; PKPD studies; toxicology; formulation studies; cell metabolism; cell phenotype and subset analyses; regulatory aspects and commentaries.

Prof. Dr. Edwin Bremer
Dr. Bahez Gareb
Dr. Hugo Calderón
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • ATMPs
  • manufacturing process
  • pharmaceutical compounding
  • product development
  • product characterization
  • process optimization
  • tech transfer
  • analytical procedures
  • qualification
  • validation
  • mechanism of action
  • CAR T cells
  • TILs
  • (viral) vectors
  • cell banking
  • regulatory aspects
  • hospital exemption
  • donor variability
  • comparability
  • point-of-care
  • allogenic/autologous
  • reconstitution/preparation for administration

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

16 pages, 3579 KiB  
Article
A Quantitative Approach to Potency Testing for Chimeric Antigen Receptor-Encoding Lentiviral Vectors and Autologous CAR-T Cell Products, Using Flow Cytometry
by Juan José Mata-Molanes, Leticia Alserawan, Carolina España, Carla Guijarro, Ana López-Pecino, Hugo Calderón, Ane Altuna, Lorena Pérez-Amill, Nela Klein-González, Carlos Fernández de Larrea, Europa Azucena González-Navarro, Julio Delgado, Manel Juan and Maria Castella
Pharmaceutics 2025, 17(3), 303; https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics17030303 - 25 Feb 2025
Viewed by 745
Abstract
Background/Objectives: Potency testing of clinical-grade lentiviral vectors (LVVs) is critical to support a drug’s commercial approval. Careful consideration should be paid to the development of a suitable potency test during the drug’s clinical development. We aimed to develop an affordable, quantitative test [...] Read more.
Background/Objectives: Potency testing of clinical-grade lentiviral vectors (LVVs) is critical to support a drug’s commercial approval. Careful consideration should be paid to the development of a suitable potency test during the drug’s clinical development. We aimed to develop an affordable, quantitative test for our CAR19-LVV, based on a measure of transgene’s functional activity. Methods: Several indicators of functional activity of CAR19-LVV were explored in a co-culture setting of CAR-transduced Jurkat cells and CD19-expressing target cells. The selected assay was further developed and subjected to validation. Assay’s adaptability to other CAR-encoding LVV and autologous CAR-T cell products was also investigated. Results: Measure of CD69 expression on the membrane of Jurkat-CAR-expressing cells is a specific indicator of CAR functionality. Quantification of CD69 in terms of mean fluorescence intensity (MFI), coupled with an intra-assay standard curve calibration, allows for a quantitative assay with high precision, specificity, robustness, linearity and accuracy. The assay has also shown optimal performance for a CARBCMA-LVV product. Importantly, we show that in primary T cells, CD69 expression reflects CAR-T cell cytotoxicity. After adaptation, we have applied a CD69-based potency test, with simultaneous measurement of CAR-T cell cytotoxicity, to autologous CAR-T cell products, demonstrating the assay’s specificity also in this context. Conclusions: We developed a validated, in vitro cell-based potency test, using a quantitative flow-cytometry method, for our CAR19-LVV. The assay is based on the detection of T-cell activation upon CAR binding to antigen, which is a measure of transgene functionality. The assay was easily adapted to another CAR-encoding LVV, targeting a different molecule. Furthermore, the same assay principle can be applied in the context of autologous CAR-T cell products. The quantitative CD69 potency assay shows reduced variability among autologous products compared to the IFNγ assay and allows for simultaneous evaluation of traditional semi-quantitative cytotoxicity, thereby directly evaluating the drug’s mechanism of action (MoA) in the same assay. Full article
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