Alternative production systems for therapeutic monoclonal antibodies

Alternative production systems for therapeutic monoclonal antibodies Monoclonal antibodies constitute a highly successful class of therapeutic proteins, with applications in various fields such as inflammatory diseases, oncology or infectious diseases. Monoclonal antibodies are currently produced on mammalian cell culture systems, such as the well established CHO cell line. Such mammalian cell systems allow the industrial production of therapeutic proteins with biological and pharmacological properties grossly similar to the natural proteins. However, expensive production costs and prohibitive therapeutic costs may limit the access of such innovative therapies to the general population and slow-down the development of this industry. Besides enduring investments to improve the production yields of mammalian systems, the pharmaceutical and biotech industries also closely monitor and invest in the development of alternative production systems with the potential for lower production costs and with the ability to produce proteins with enhanced therapeutic indexes.