Technical Considerations of Pharmacokinetic Assays for LNP-mRNA Drug Products by RT-qPCR

Pennucci J, Hays A, Adamowicz W, Azadeh M, Benhammadi M, Portabella EB, Cheng M, Colletti K, Dholakiya SL, Doddareddy R, Duchstein L, Durham J, Guelman S, Gullick B, Herr K, Jani D, Jani N, Johansson O, John K, Kubista M, Lavelle A, Li G, Li Y, Liu HY, Lochmann T, Ma H, Moritz B, Murphy J, Park A, Peddigari S, Piche MS, Ramaswamy SS, Reddy A, Smet M, Stanta J, Valentine J, Veirs K, Vepachedu V, Wissel M, Wu M, Xu B, Zondlo S. Technical Considerations of Pharmacokinetic Assays for LNP-mRNA Drug Products by RT-qPCR. AAPS J. 2025 Sep 18;27(6):144. doi: 10.1208/s12248-025-01122-w.

Abstract

Lipid nanoparticle-messenger RNA (LNP-mRNA) drug products are a growing class of drug modalities. The unique composition of these drug products requires multiple measurements to account for the different components of these drug modalities. Pharmacokinetic (PK) measurements include measurement of the encapsulated mRNA and components of the LNP in circulation to understand the effectiveness of the therapeutic mRNA. The PK measurements can utilize many different platforms including PCR. Current regulatory guidance documents for bioanalytical method validation are specific to ligand binding and chromatographic assay methods and difficult to interpret for use with molecular workflows. The purpose of this paper is to provide information on considerations for validation of regulated reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) assays that are used to support the pharmacokinetic analysis of LNP-mRNA drug products.