Virus Reduction of Human Plasma-Derived Biological Medicines

Abstract

Context: Biological plasma-derived medicines play an important role in the treatment and also prevention of many diseases. The technique implemented to produce such medicines should ensure to minimize the risk of pathogen infection. A very crucial step is the removal or inactivation of highly pathogenic plasma viruses, and only achieving the highly pure product is not adequate. Evidence Acquisition: In the current study, a wide range of physical, chemical, and physicochemical methods of virus inactivation and virus removal were studied to minimize the virus contamination risk in plasma-derived medicines. Results: The virus removal or virus inactivation procedures showed that they were the quite effective techniques in pathogen reduction. But, some of these methods such as solvent/detergent were only effective on lipid-enveloped viruses, while other techniques can be effective both for lipid-enveloped and non-enveloped viruses. Conclusions: To inactivate or remove the most range of viruses, at least 2 different virus inactivation or virus removal techniques should be implemented. But, still emerging new pathogens cause a serious challenge in terms of blood safety, and consequently, safety of human plasma-derived medicines.