Stellar Biotechnologies announced that third-party trial results have demonstrated that the company's KLH manufacturing methods achieve robust viral clearance. This clearance step is a key quality assurance milestone under Stellar's initiatives to increase the scalability and throughput capacity of its manufacturing processes.
Results from testing completed by Texcell, a contract testing organization for viral safety, demonstrated that Stellar's manufacturing process for its most widely used formulation effectively removes three representative viruses, and meets suggested regulatory criteria for robustness. While routine quality testing has never detected the presence of viruses in Stellar KLH, one of the principal approaches to control the potential presence of viruses in biological products is to purposely introduce viruses in a test environment and demonstrate the capacity of the production process to remove them.
Stellar Executive Vice President of Corporate Development, Gregory T. Baxter, PhD, said that the company aims to roll out manufacturing optimizations ahead of the next phase of its customers' clinical studies, and will continue to routinely test for viruses and validate the viral removal of its manufacturing processes as needed.
"KLH is a key component for the success of multiple immunotherapies under development and Stellar is committed to expanding our manufacturing capacity and validating our quality systems as our customers advance toward pivotal Phase 3 clinical studies," Baxter said.