Koji Urakami

Charge heterogeneity of a therapeutic monoclonal antibody conjugated with a cytotoxic antitumor antibiotic, calicheamicin.

A robust and highly reproducible capillary isoelectric focusing (cIEF) method for the evaluation of charge heterogeneity of monoclonal antibody (mAb) pharmaceutical which contains covalently bound antitumor compounds was developed using a combination of commercially available dimethylpolysiloxane-coated capillary and carrier ampholyte. In order to optimize major analytical parameters for robust mobilization, experimental responses from three pI markers were selected. The optimized method gave excellent repeatability and intermediate precision in estimated pI values of charge variants with relative standard deviations (RSDs) of not more than 0.06% and 0.95%, respectively, when using IgG(4) as a model. Furthermore, RSDs of charge variant compositions were less than 5.0%. These results suggest that the proposed method can be a powerful tool for reproducible evaluation of charge variants of both naked mAbs and their conjugates with high resolution, and it is applicable to quality testing and detailed characterization in the pharmaceutical industry. In addition, it should be noticed that the method provided non-linear pH gradient within the tested ranges, from pI 9.50 to 3.78, and the pH gradient caused the inconsistency of estimated pI ranges between cIEF and gel IEF. This result indicates that selecting appropriate pI markers based on the target pI ranges of charge variants for each mAb related pharmaceutical is highly recommended for the precise determination of pI values.

A kinetic and thermodynamic study of seratrodast polymorphic transition by isothermal microcalorimetry

The development of isothermal microcalorimetry to a study of the kinetic and thermodynamics of polymorphic transitions in seratrodast ((+/-)-7-(3,5,6-trimethyl-1,4-benzoquinon-2-yl)-7-phenylheptanoic acid) Form II is reported. Sieved samples of Form II were allowed to convert to Form I, in a reaction vessel of an isothermal microcalorimeter, under 13, 31, 63 and 93% relative humidity (RH) between 48 and 65 degrees C. The power (Phi, in Watts) versus time curves from the microcalorimeter were integrated into the heat output (q, in Joules) versus time curves to yield fractional extent of Form I converted versus time curves. The change in enthalpy (-5.70 kJmol(-1)) agreed very closely with that obtained by differential scanning calorimetry and solution calorimetry, which indicated that the power measured by the microcalorimeter was due only to the Form II-to-Form I transition. Application of the theoretical kinetic method [J. Am. Ceram. Soc. 55 (1972) 74] revealed that the transition took place via a two-dimensional growth of nuclei mechanism at all the studied relative humidities and temperatures. The rate constant increased with increasing RH and temperature, and with decreasing the particle size of sample. The activation energies obtained from Arrhenius plots were 292, 290, 280 and 284 kJmol(-1), and the extrapolated rate constants at 25 degrees C were also 3.01 x 10(-10), 3.11 x 10(-10), 9.65 x 10(-10) and 3.84 x 10(-9)s(-1) for 13, 31, 63 and 93% RH, respectively.