Biosimilar characterization facility opens in Austria

A new biopharmaceutical development facility has opened as the result of the collaboration between an Austrian university and a multinational life science instrumentation company.

Combined efforts from the University of Salzburg (Salzburg, Austria) and Thermo Fisher Scientific (MA, USA) have led to the launch of a new facility for the characterization of proteins for biopharmaceuticals. The newly established Christian Doppler Laboratory (Vienna, Austria) will oversee the development of characterization tools for the efficacy and safety of therapeutic proteins, with the protein production and characterization expertise of the university, and Thermo Fisher’s provision of Orbitrap-based LC–MS technology and nano-UHPLC systems and columns. According to Christian Huber, head of the laboratory, “The more physical, chemical and biological data we can obtain for protein-based drugs, the more certain we can be that they will produce the desired effects and will not produce unexpected adverse effects.”

Thermo Fisher will also provide software and future workflows for characterization of protein-based drugs and quality control. “As the leader in protein characterization technology, we are confident that we will make a significant technical contribution to the detailed analysis of biosimilars and their quality control,” said Alain Guiller, Vice President of global sales, LC–MS, Thermo Fisher.

Co-funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Economy, Family and Youth, the collaboration will provide the facility with access to the most recent technologies for industrial application.

Source: On the test bench: protein-based drugs.