Critical process parameters in manufacturing of liposomal formulations of amphotericin B

Identifying the critical process parameters (CPPs) of a complex drug product manufacture and the associated impact on critical quality attributes (CQAs) is essential to the development and quality control of both new and generic drugs. AmBisome, a liposomal amphotericin B (AMB) macrolide antibiotic widely adopted as an important antifungal drug product, was used as a model complex drug product in the current study. This study investigated how multi-step production approaches and related manufacturing conditions may affect essential physico-chemical and toxicological properties of the final drug product. A key challenge in the manufacture and analysis of liposomal AMB was the drug substance’s propensity to aggregate, with associated poor solubility in water and organic solvents. This study identified three key CPPs in a four step manufacturing process: (i) proper acidification during formation of the drug-lipid complexes (Step 1), (ii) liposome heat curing following liposomal particle sizing (Step 3), and (iii) flash-freezing at the initial stages of the lyophilization cycle (Step 4). Over-acidification led to rapid degradation of the drug, whereas under-acidification hampered full solubilization and formation of the soluble drug-lipid complexes. Extended heat treatment of the formed liposomes at 65 °C, just above the lipid phase transition temperature, brought dramatic changes in the aggregated state and/or packing of the drug in the liposomal bilayer, as followed by the complex changes in the UV/Vis spectra. Such thermal conditioning resulted in a five- to ten-fold reduction in the in-vitro toxicity of the drug product, bringing it close to the values for AmBisome used as control and measured by the RBC assay. Finally, flash-freezing conditions during lyophilization was critical to prevent aggregation and maintaining the 80–120 nm liposome size when reconstituted. Our research found that changes in the amphotericin’s UV/Vis spectra were a sensitive CQA measure and provided a set of quantitative parameters for a facile non-destructive process monitoring in-situ, as well as for comparison of the quality of final formulations.