Investigation of the Physicochemical and Biological Stability of the Adalimumab Biosimilar CT-P17

CT-P17 (Celltrion, Inc., Incheon, Republic of Korea) is a biosimilar of reference adalimumab (Humira^®; AbbVie Inc., North Chicago, IL, USA), which has recently received regulatory approval from the European Medicines Agency.

This analysis was designed to evaluate the stability profile of CT-P17 compared with reference adalimumab and the currently licensed adalimumab biosimilars ABP 501 (Amjevita^®/Amgevita^®; Amgen Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA, USA) and SB5 (Imraldi^®; Biogen Inc., Cambridge, MA, USA) when stored at low temperature (5 °C) or room temperature (25 °C) with 60% relative humidity for up to 28 days.

Multiple orthogonal and complementary tests demonstrated that CT-P17 was stable for 28 days under all tested conditions, as well as for protein concentrations tested (50 vs 100 mg/mL), type of delivery device (autoinjector vs prefilled syringe), and manufacturing date (recently manufactured vs aged for 17 months). There were slight differences among products in terms of charge variants, oxidation level, purity, and number of subvisible particles; however, overall, the quality of each product was maintained over 28 days.

Our data suggest that CT-P17 may be used without any significant loss of stability when stored at 5 °C or 25 °C with 60% relative humidity for up to 28 days, and was not impacted by protein concentration tested and delivery device. Comparative stability data suggest that the appropriate maximum storage period for CT-P17 may be up to 28 days at room temperature with 60% relative humidity.