Making sure you have an optimal set of analytical techniques at your disposal is crucial whatever your research focus, but can be particularly challenging in sectors that are experiencing rapid change, such as biopharmaceutical development. Biopharmaceuticals and biosimilars are still relatively young drugs when compared to their small-molecule counterparts – and as readers know, they can behave unexpectedly during manufacture.

The biopharmaceutical sector has been climbing a steep learning curve, but at last we are gaining a better understanding of which properties to monitor and how to measure them. That said, there is still room for improvement. Today, the main concerns in drug development focus on bioactivity and efficacy, stability, ease of delivery, safety and immunogenicity. What (and how) to measure when it comes to understanding these factors is still open to debate, especially as requirements can change throughout the drug development pipeline. Instrument manufacturers continue to work hard to commercialize new technologies to meet the industry’s modern needs – and today there are many analytical solutions to choose from.