Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are highly valued biopharmaceuticals. To patients, these molecules are medicines for conditions that have previously been untreatable, improving quality of life and saving lives. To pharmaceutical companies, a successful product can be worth billions. For companies, however, the development of these therapies is a long and expensive process. The patent protected, marketable “life”, of these molecules is relatively short and so companies have only a few years to recoup the cost of development. The cost of these treatments to health services and patients alike can, therefore, be prohibitive. If the development process could be de-risked to identify molecules that will be easily manufactured early in the process, this could lead to significantly reduced costs. MAbs are complex molecules produced by living organisms. Their production process leads to inherent differences. The charge variant (CV) profile of a mAb is arguably one of the most important critical quality attributes (CQAs) monitored during manufacturing. The CV profile is constituted by mAb isoforms with heterogeneous net charge caused by enzymatic and non-enzymatic processes. Strong cation exchange (SCX) represents the predominant analytical procedure used in this project. The molecular composition of each isoform is usually determined using a multifaceted analytical strategy consisting of mass spectrometry (MS) analysis on many levels, peptide mapping and glycosylation profiling in addition to other methods to evaluate structure and function. By hyphenation of SCX to MS the main isoforms of the mAb can be identified in one analysis rather than a longer and less reliable multi-step process. To fully understand SCX in depth investigations into the fundamental absorption mechanisms of salt and pH elution modes were performed. From this investigation the optimum parameters were utilised to develop a rapid charge variant method. Finally, to investigate the equivalence of SCX-MS to traditional characterisation studies a comprehensive study of in-house produced Cetuximab was performed. These studies combined to develop a platform for the rapid and in-depth characterisation of candidate molecules by SCX-MS.