Special Issue on “Recovery of Biological Products: Past, Present, Future”

Abstract

Downstream processing is pivotal in the biotherapeutic production sector, which has evolved from traditional recombinant proteins to cutting-edge modalities such as novel engineered antibody formats and gene therapies. The recent pandemic has further diversified pipelines, with a significant increase in research and development for groundbreaking viral-vectored and RNA products. This evolution introduces unique purification challenges, underscoring the need for manufacturing approaches that are more flexible, agile, scalable, digitally integrated, supply chain resilient, and capable of faster market delivery. This Special Issue of Biotechnology and Bioengineering (B&B) compiles advances and future directions in downstream processing of biotherapeutics, highlighting contributions from the recent Recovery of Biological Products XIX Conference (RXIX) with its theme on "Past, Present, Future" (RXIX, Rome, Italy, July 10-15, 2022) (Figure 1) chaired by Suzanne Farid (UCL), Nihal Tugcu (Sanofi), and Arne Staby (Novo Nordisk). The issue reflects on