Biopharmaceuticals enzyme-based

Drug Delivery Systems of Enzyme-Based Biopharmaceuticals... 

Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly interested in developing products based on proteins, enzymes, and peptides. With the development of such products comes the need for methods to evaluate the purity and structural nature of these biopharmaceuticals. Proteins, unlike traditional pharmaceutical entities, rely on a specific secondary structure for efficacy. Methods to monitor the secondary structure of pharmaceutically active proteins, thus, is necessary. Infrared spectroscopy provides a way to study these compounds quickly and easily. Byler et al. (65) used second-derivative IR to assess the purity and structural integrity of porcine pancreatic elastase. Seven different lyophilized samples of porcine pancreatic elastase were dissolved in D20, placed in demountable cells with CaF2 windows, and IR spectra obtained. The second derivatives of the spectra were calculated and the spectral features due to residual water vapor and D20 removed. 

So far, we have focused more on the delivery of peptides and proteins, and we will now switch to the delivery of DNA-based biopharmaceuticals - this is not an easy task, because the enzymes that degrade DNA are ubiquitous and are basically lurking everywhere. 

The setting up of new biotechnology companies (Section 1.4.2) was the key event for the development of biopharmaceuticals based on recombinant technologies. Antibiotic manufacture had been established before this (Section 1.3). Antibiotics are still the most important strategy against bacterial infections. The world production of antibiotics is estimated at over 60000 tons per aimum, valued at more than 30 billion per year [128, 129]. For the synthesis of semisynthetic penicUlins and cephalosporins, the fermentation products penicillin G and cephalosporin, respectively, are hydrolyzed by immobilized enzymes to yield the acid form with the intact P-lactam ring as the active principal 6-APA, 7-ACA, or 7-aminodeacetoxy cephalosporanic acid (7-ADCA). 

---