Comparison of Two Clinical Laboratory Assays for Measuring Serum Adalimumab and Antibodies to Adalimumab

Adalimumab is a fully human monoclonal antibody developed against tumor necrosis factor (TNF), used for the treatment of autoimmune and chronic inflammatory diseases. Immunogenicity to this drug may lead to therapeutic failure. Various laboratory assays are used for measuring serum adalimumab and anti-drug antibodies (ADA) to adalimumab, for therapeutic monitoring and evaluation of clinical non-responsiveness. This study compared the performance of 2 clinical assays used by different reference laboratories.

In total, 120 residual clinical samples were tested at both laboratories. A sandwich ELISA for adalimumab detecting free drug and a bridging ELISA capable of detecting both free and bound ADA were performed at the Mayo Clinic. A functional cell-based reporter gene assay (RGA) was used at ARUP Laboratories for measuring bioactive serum drug concentrations, and neutralizing ADA.

Seventy-eight samples had measurable concentrations of adalimumab by both methods and yielded a correlation coefficient r = 0.93, slope = 0.886, and intercept = 0.950. Overall agreement of 92.5% was observed between the assays, with most discrepant drug results being attributed to a higher positivity rate with ELISA (8/9). One outlier positive with RGA and negative with ELISA was confirmed by LC-MS/MS to be attributed to infliximab. Overall agreement of 79.2% was observed between the ADA assays. Differences in ADA results may be due to the bridging ELISA detecting total ADA (free, drug-bound, neutralizing, and non-neutralizing), while RGA detects free, neutralizing ADA only.

Although the assays are fundamentally different, the results show significant concordance between the clinically validated tests performed in different laboratories.