Marc Arnold


Novalix GmbH Germany Im Neuenheimer Feld 518 69120 Heidelberg Germany

Abstract:

Therapeutic antibodies are mainly purified by established platform processes including a Protein A affinity capture step. Although this protein ligand is accepted as the current gold standard for antibody purification it also has some severe limitations like high costs, low chemical stability and leaching. Through a unique SPR screening platform we have identified and developed small molecule affinity ligands for cost efficient purification of IgG1, IgG2 and IgG4 antibodies. For the identification of the Fc binders, several humanized therapeutic antibodies were screened against a unique and diverse library of > 116k compounds immobilized on gold chips via linkers. Observed antibody specific hits were then coupled to NHS-Sepharose 4 FF for chromatographic evaluation. Best ligands showed high selectivity, high capacity and fast binding kinetics comparable to Protein A. Due to the extraordinary high chemical stability and low cost of the developed ligands they might represent an attractive Protein A replacement.