Purification processes of live virus vaccine candidates expressed in adherent Vero cell lines via multimodal chromatography in flowthrough mode

Abstract

Live virus vaccine (LVV) purification, employing chromatography, can be challenged by low binding capacities and elution yields. Alternatively, processes relying solely on enzymatic digestion steps and size‐based membrane separations can be limited by suboptimal reduction of process related impurities and poorly scalable unit operations. Here, we demonstrate that the combination of flowthrough mode chromatography and an ultrafiltration/diafiltration (UF/DF) unit operation delivers a purification process for two different LVV candidates, V590 and Measles, expressed in adherent Vero cells. For V590, chromatography with mixed mode cation exchange resins returned final product yields of ∼50% and logarithmic reduction values (LRVs) of 1.7–>3.4 and 2.5–3.0 for host cell DNA (hcDNA) and host cell proteins (HCPs), respectively. For Measles, chromatography with mixed mode anion exchange resins returned final product yields of ∼50% and LRVs of 1.6 and 2.2 for hcDNA and HCPs, respectively. For both V590 and Measles processing, the employed resins cleared a key HCP, fibronectin, which could foul the UF/DF unit operation, and thusly enabling it to further reduce HCPs and to formulate the final LVV products. This integrated purification process utilizes the complementary action of the two unit operations and its applicability across LVVs supports its consideration for their processing.