Biopharmaceuticals against Viral disease - development and pharmaceutical action - Research Paper Example

In particular, biopharmaceuticals that are produced to target viral diseases will be examined using the example of Hepatitis C. Biopharmaceuticals are generally large proteins (Sekhon, 2010). The manufacture of these proteins can be done on a large scale using biotechnological methods. What production system is used depends on the type of protein being developed but can range from mammalian cells, yeast, insect cells or bacteria (Sekhon, 2010). The primary goals that have to be taken into consideration when developing a biopharmaceutical are that it should be effective under clinical situations, it should be in a form that is approvable by regulatory authorities and it should be practical to market commercially (Sekhon, 2010).

after taking all these factors into consideration, the production of a biopharmaceutical is no easy feat. It requires work on many different levels of expertise (Sekhon, 2010). Very broadly, the development of a biopharmaceutical vaccine to target viruses generally involves the following stages. There is production of a carrier system followed by inoculation of the target with the virus. Reproducibility and infectivity are eliminated and the virus fragment is then purified (Sekhon, 2010). One biopharmaceuticals have been manufactured, there is also the possibility of manufacturing biosimilars, which are other biopharmaceuticals with similar structure and function.

This is a challenging task as slight changes in structure; composition etc may result in a large disruption of function (Locatelli and Roger, 2006). The protein content, activity, physiochemical integrity, stability, impurities and additives and immunogenicity all have to be tested separately to ensure that they do in fact behave like the reference drug. A variety of different assays is used for this process (Locatelli and Roger, 2006). One of the major hurdles with the manufacture and use of biopharmaceuticals