Managing uncertainty: A perspective on risk pertaining to product quality attributes as they bear on immunogenicity of therapeutic proteins

The critical question addressed in this paper regards how industry and regulatory agencies should manage the risk of adverse events to patients posed by product quality attributes for which a preponderance of evidence from clinical and/or non-clinical studies supports it as a risk, but for which the probability of clinical adverse events arising from the attribute is uncertain. We here provide our perspective on the principles that can be applied to determine the need for and the manner in which to control quality attributes when their impact on safety and/or efficacy is suspected, but uncertain. As an example, we use the risk of immune responses to protein therapeutics posed by sub-visible protein particulates in therapeutic proteins. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. and the American Pharmacists Association J Pharm Sci 101:3560-3567, 2012