FDA APPROVES BIOTESTS BIVIGAM TO TREAT PRIMARY HUMORAL IMMUNODEFIECIENCY

Jan 31, 2013,

Biotest Pharmaceuticals Corporation (BPC), a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary of Biotest AG, recently announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of BIVIGAM™, its new intravenous immune globulin, for the treatment of patients with Primary Humoral Immunodeficiency (PI).

BIVIGAM is the first new intravenous immune globulin (IVIG) to be approved by the FDA with a validated assay for measuring potential thrombogenic activity. Thrombin generation tests are utilized to detect procoagulant activity. BPC plans to begin shipments of the product shortly.

To reduce the risk of thromboembolic events that PI patients have experienced in the past with alternative products, BPC initiated the development and validation of a TGA test in close cooperation with the FDA. Every lot of BPC’s BIVIGAM will be screened before release to assure the product fulfills the stringent release criteria pertaining to the threshold levels of Factor XIa. Increased Factor XIa has been identified as one of the risk factors associated with thromboembolic events following immune globulin intravenous therapy.

BIVIGAM is a sugar-free, glycine stabilized intravenous immune globulin that was approved by the FDA on December 19, 2012 and is available in 50 mL (5 gram) and 100 mL (10 gram) tamper-evident vials. The product uses a label with an integrated hanger and the packaging material is latex free. It is manufactured in a state-of-the-art US facility and will be available exclusively for patients and healthcare professionals in the USA. For Full Prescribing Information and more information about the product, the indication and additional services, please visit www.BIVIGAM.com.

BIVIGAM is a purified, sterile, ready-to-use preparation of concentrated humanimmunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies. The distribution of IgG subclasses is similar to that of normal plasma.^19,20 The active ingredient is human immunoglobulin purified from source human plasma and processed using a modified classical Cohn Method 6 / Oncley Method 9 fractionation procedure. BIVIGAM contains 100 ± 10 mg/mL protein, of which not less than 96% is human immunoglobulin obtained from source human plasma. It is formulated in water for injection containing 0.100-0.140 M sodium chloride, 0.20-0.29 M glycine, 0.15–0.25% polysorbate 80, and pH 4.0–4.6. BIVIGAM contains ≤ 200 μg/mL of IgA.

Each plasma donation used for the manufacture of BIVIGAM is collected from FDA licensed facilities and undergoes rigorous testing. Plasma donations must test negative for hepatitis B virus (HBV) surface antigen (HBsAg), antibodies to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) strains 1 and 2 (anti-HIV-½), and antibodies to the hepatitis C virus (anti-HCV) as determined by enzyme immuno assay (EIA). In addition, each plasma unit must test negative and/or non-reactive for HIV RNA, HCV RNA, HBV DNA, Hepatitis A Virus (HAV) RNA, and Parvovirus B19 (B19 virus) DNA as determined by Nucleic Acid Amplification Testing (NAT) of plasma minipools. NAT for B19 virus DNA is also performed on a sample of the manufacturing pool and the limit for B19 virus DNA in a manufacturing pool is set not to exceed 104 IU/mL.

The manufacturing process of BIVIGAM employs three steps to remove/inactivateadventitious viruses to minimize the risk of virus transmission. The steps are “Precipitation and removal of fraction III” during cold ethanol fractionation, classical “Solvent/detergent treatment” and “35 nm virus filtration”. In compliance with current guidelines, the steps have been separately validated in a series of in vitro experiments for their capacity to inactivate or remove both enveloped and non-enveloped viruses.

Precipitation and removal of fraction III removes both enveloped and non-enveloped viruses, solvent/detergent treatment represents a virus inactivation step for enveloped viruses, and 35 nm virus filtration removes both enveloped and non-enveloped viruses by size exclusion. In addition to the steps above, low pH during several steps of the production process contributes to virus inactivation. The results of virus validation studies for BIVIGAM are shown in Table 3, expressed as log₁₀ reduction factors.