Production of a Bevacizumab Biosimilar Using Continuous Manufacturing Practices; Analysis of Factors Contributing to the Inaccessibility of Cancer Treatments

The technical project and STS project included in this portfolio are tightly linked. Both of them are focused on the issue of cancer treatments being inaccessible to many, and aim to shed light on the issue and provide possible solutions that may lead to lifesaving developments in healthcare and the pharmaceutical industry. Even more specifically than just focusing on cancer treatments, both projects focus on a specific subset of protein therapeutics in monoclonal antibodies, which are a large part of the market. The two projects together present a multi-faceted approach to providing greater access to monoclonal antibody treatments. The STS project presents an overview of the factors leading to inaccessibility, taking a look into several facets of the process that takes mAbs from production to distribution and ultimately patient use. This serves to shine a light on the process as a whole, as well as to highlight areas that could be improved on in the future. The technical project takes a much more in-depth and hands-on approach to providing more accessible treatments, as my group designed a working process that could be readily implemented to produce generic alternatives to expensive name-brand versions of monoclonal antibody treatments. This provides a much more actionable and specific solution than was possible with the STS project. Despite having varied scopes and using different analytical approaches, these two projects both look to accomplish the same goal of making cancer treatments more affordable, and they complement each other by focusing on both the large and small-scale aspects of the monoclonal antibody market.