Challenges and opportunities in bioanalytical support for gene therapy medicinal product development

Gene and nucleic acid therapies have demonstrated patient benefits to address unmet medical needs. Beside considerations regarding the biological nature of the gene therapy, the quality of bioanalytical methods plays an important role in ensuring the success of these novel therapies. Inconsistent approaches among bioanalytical labs during preclinical and clinical phases have been observed. There are many underlying reasons for this inconsistency. Various platforms and reagents used in quantitative methods, lacking of detailed regulatory guidance on method validation and uncertainty of immunogenicity strategy in supporting gene therapy may all be influential. This review summarizes recent practices and considerations in bioanalytical support of pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics and immunogenicity evaluations in gene therapy development with insight into method design, development and validations.