Improvement of virus safety of an antihemophilc factor Ⅸ by virus filtration process

Viral safety is an important prerequisite for clinical preparations of plasma-derived pharmaceuticals. One potential way to increase the safety of therapeutic biological products is the use of a virus-retentive filter. In order to increase the viral safety of human antihemophilic factor Ⅸ, particularly in regard to non-enveloped viruses, a virus removal process using a polyvinylidene fluoride membrane filter (Viresolve NFP) has been optimized. The most critical factor affecting the filtration efficiency was operating pH and the optimum pH was 6 or 7. Flow rate increased with increasing operating pressure and temperature. Recovery yield in the optimized production-scale process was 96%. No substantial changes were observed in the physical and biochemical characteristics of the filtered factor Ⅸ in comparison with those before filtration. A 47-mm disk membrane filter was used to simulate the process performance of the production-scale cartridges and to test if it could remove several experimental model viruses for human pathogenic viruses, including human hepatitis A virus (HAV), porcine parvovirus (PPV), murine encephalomyocarditis virus (EMCV), human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV), bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV), and bovine herpes virus (BHV). Non-enveloped viruses (HAV, PPV, and EMCV) as well as enveloped viruses (HIV, BVDV, and BHV) were completely removed during filtration. The log reduction factors achieved were greater-than or equal to 6.12 for HAV, greater-than or equal to 4.28 for PPV, greater-than or equal to 5.33 for EMCV, greater-than or equal to 5.51 for HIV greater-than or equal to 5.17 for BVDV, and greater-than or equal to 5.75 for BHV. These results indicate that the virus filtration process successfully improved the viral safety of factor Ⅸ.