A novel clarification approach for intensified monoclonal antibody processes with 100 million cells/mL using a single-use fluidized bed centrifuge

Cost-efficient cell clarification using an intensified fluidized bed centrifugation platform approach

The intensification of industrial biopharmaceutical production and the integration of process steps pave the way for patients to access affordable treatments. The predominantly batchwise biomanufacturing of established cell clarification technologies, stainless steel disc stack centrifugation (DSC) and single-use (SU) depth filtration (DF), pose technological and economical bottlenecks, that include low biomass loading capacities and low product recoveries. Therefore, a novel SU-based clarification platform was developed combining fluidized bed centrifugation (FBC) with integrated filtration. The feasibility of this approach was investigated for high cell concentration with more than 100E6 cells/mL. Furthermore, scalability to 200 L bioreactor scale was tested for moderate cell concentrations. In both trials, low harvest turbidities (4 NTU) and superior antibody recoveries (95%) were achieved. The impact on the overall economics of industrial SU biomanufacturing using an up-scaled FBC approach was compared with DSC and DF technologies for different process parameters. As a result, the FBC showed to be the most cost-effective alternative for annual mAb production below 500 kg. In addition, the FBC clarification of increasing cell concentrations was found to have minimal impact on overall process costs, in contrast to established technologies, demonstrating that the FBC approach is particularly suitable for intensified processes.

Triple Space-Time Yield in Discontinuous Antibody Biomanufacturing by Combination of Synergetic Process Intensification Strategies

Monoclonal antibodies are the workhorse of the pharmaceutical industry due to their potential to treat a variety of different diseases while providing high specificity and efficiency. As a consequence, a variety of production processes have been established within the biomanufacturing industry. However, the rapidly increasing demand for therapeutic molecules amid the recent COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that there still is a clear need to establish novel, highly productive, and flexible production processes. Within this work, we designed a novel discontinuous process by combining two intensification strategies, thus increasing inoculation density and media exchange via a fluidized bed centrifuge, to fulfill the need for a flexible and highly productive production process for therapeutic molecules. To establish this new process, firstly, a small-scale experiment was conducted to verify synergies between both intensification strategies, followed by a process transfer towards the proof-of-concept scale. The combination of these two-process intensification measures revealed overall synergies resulting in decreased process duration (-37%) and strongly enhanced product formation (+116%) in comparison to the not-intensified standard operation. This led to an impressive threefold increase in space-time yield, while only negligible differences in product quality could be observed. Overall, this novel process not only increases the ways to react to emergency situations thanks to its flexibility and possible short development times, but also represents a possible alternative to the current established processes due to high increases in productivity, in comparison to standard fed-batch operations.

Evaluation of a single-use disk stack centrifuge for improved efficiency and sustainability at 1000 L GMP manufacturing scale

Direct depth filtration is an established technology for single-use harvest operation. Advantages of direct depth filtration include familiarity with depth filtration in downstream processes and simplicity of the operation. Drawbacks include low capacity, large footprint, labor-intensive set-up, high water use, and high waste in the form of discarded filters. Single-use centrifugation is emerging as an alternative to depth filtration for the single-use harvest step. Within the single-use centrifugation space, disc stack centrifugation represents the newest entrant. In this study, we evaluated the performance of the GEA kytero single-use disc stack centrifuge to clarify two monoclonal antibody-producing cell culture fluids. The separation performance of the GEA kytero centrifuge varied between the two cell culture fluids, with differences in centrate turbidity and centrate filterability measured. A comparison was then performed to determine resource savings, compared to direct two-stage depth filtration, when using a GEA kytero centrifuge to harvest a 1000 L bioreactor. The analysis concluded that replacement of the first stage of depth filters with a GEA kytero centrifuge has the potential to decrease the required second stage depth filtration area by up to 80%. The decrease in depth filter area resulting from the use of the GEA kytero would result in a decrease in the harvest step footprint, a decrease in buffer volume required to prime and rinse depth filters, and a decrease in the volume of plastic waste. An economic comparison of the GEA kytero single-use centrifuge against a direct depth filtration step found that for a 1000 L harvest step, the GEA kytero centrifuge may reduce costs by up to 20% compared with two-stage direct depth filtration.

A novel hybrid bioprocess strategy addressing key challenges of advanced biomanufacturing

Monoclonal antibodies (mAb) are commonly manufactured by either discontinuous operations like fed-batch (FB) or continuous processes such as steady-state perfusion. Both process types comprise opposing advantages and disadvantages in areas such as plant utilization, feasible cell densities, media consumption and process monitoring effort. In this study, we show feasibility of a promising novel hybrid process strategy that combines beneficial attributes of both process formats. In detail, our strategy comprises a short duration FB, followed by a fast media exchange and cell density readjustment, marking the start of the next FB cycle. Utilizing a small-scale screening tool, we were able to identify beneficial process parameters, including FB interval duration and reinoculation cell density, that allow for multiple cycles of the outlined process in a reproducible manner. In addition, we could demonstrate scalability of the process to a 5L benchtop system, using a fluidized-bed centrifuge as scalable media exchange system. The novel process showed increased productivity (+217%) as well as longer cultivation duration, in comparison to a standard FB with a significantly lower media consumption per produced product (-50%) and a decreased need for process monitoring, in comparison to a perfusion cultivation. Further, the process revealed constant glycosylation pattern in comparison to the perfusion cultivation and has strong potential for further scale-up, due to the use of fully scalable cultivation and media exchange platforms. In summary, we have developed a novel hybrid process strategy that tackles the key challenges of current biomanufacturing of either low productivity or high media consumption, representing a new and innovative approach for future process intensification efforts.

Boosting Productivity for Advanced Biomanufacturing by Re-Using Viable Cells

Monoclonal antibodies (mAb) have gained enormous therapeutic application during the last decade as highly efficient and flexible tools for the treatment of various diseases. Despite this success, there remain opportunities to drive down the manufacturing costs of antibody-based therapies through cost efficiency measures. To reduce production costs, novel process intensification methods based on state-of-the-art fed-batch and perfusion have been implemented during the last few years. Building on process intensification, we demonstrate the feasibility and benefits of a novel, innovative hybrid process that combines the robustness of a fed-batch operation with the benefits of a complete media exchange enabled through a fluidized bed centrifuge (FBC). In an initial small-scale FBC-mimic screening, we investigated multiple process parameters, resulting in increased cell proliferation and an elongated viability profile. Consecutively, the most productive process scenario was transferred to the 5-L scale, further optimized and compared to a standard fed-batch process. Our data show that the novel hybrid process enables significantly higher peak cell densities (163%) and an impressive increase in mAb amount of approximately 254% while utilizing the same reactor size and process duration of the standard fed-batch operation. Furthermore, our data show comparable critical quality attributes (CQAs) between the processes and reveal scale-up possibilities and no need for extensive additional process monitoring. Therefore, this novel process intensification strategy yields strong potential for transfer into future industrial manufacturing processes.

Transformation of Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing Through Single-Use Technologies: Current State, Remaining Challenges, and Future Development

Single-use technologies have transformed conventional biopharmaceutical manufacturing, and their adoption is increasing rapidly for emerging applications like antibody-drug conjugates and cell and gene therapy products. These disruptive technologies have also had a significant impact during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, helping to advance process development to enable the manufacturing of new monoclonal antibody therapies and vaccines. Single-use systems provide closed plug-and-play solutions and enable process intensification and continuous processing. Several challenges remain, providing opportunities to advance single-use sensors and their integration with single-use systems, to develop novel plastic materials, and to standardize design for interchangeability. Because the industry is changing rapidly, a holistic analysis of the current single-use technologies is required, with a summary of the latest advancements in materials science and the implementation of these technologies in end-to-end bioprocesses.

Rapid intensification of an established CHO cell fed-batch process

Currently, the mammalian biomanufacturing industry explores process intensification (PI) to meet upcoming demands of biotherapeutics while keeping production flexible but, more importantly, as economic as possible. However, intensified processes often require more development time compared with conventional fed‐batches (FBs) preventing their implementation. Hence, rapid and efficient, yet straightforward strategies for PI are needed. In this study we demonstrate such a strategy for the intensification of an N‐stage FB by implementing N‐1 perfusion cell culture and high inoculum cell densities resulting in a robust intensified FB (iFB). Furthermore, we show successful combination of such an iFB with the addition of productivity enhancers, which has not been reported so far. The conventional CHO cell FB process was step‐wise improved and intensified rapidly in multi‐parallel small‐scale bioreactors using N‐1 perfusion. The iFBs were performed in 15 and 250 ml bioreactors and allowed to evaluate the impact on key process indicators (KPI): the space–time yield (STY) was successfully doubled from 0.28 to 0.55 g/L d, while product quality was maintained. This gain was generated by initially increasing the inoculation density, thus shrinking process time, and second supplementation with butyric acid (BA), which reduced cell growth and enhanced cell‐specific productivity from ~25 to 37 pg/(cell d). Potential impacts of PI on cell metabolism were evaluated using flux balance analysis. Initial metabolic differences between the standard and intensified process were observed but disappeared quickly. This shows that PI can be achieved rapidly for new as well as existing processes without introducing sustained changes in cellular and metabolic behavior.

Recent Progress in Harvest and Recovery Techniques of Mammalian and Algae Cells for Industries

In our modern world, biotechnology products play important roles not only in our health and culture, but also various industries such as food, agriculture, sewage treatment, biofuels, nutraceuticals, and pharmaceuticals. Rapid technological advances in biotechnology over the last few decades have allowed industrial integration of mammalian cells (like the Chinese hamster ovary cells) and algae cells in pharmaceutical and biofuel industries to produce commercial products and valuable biomolecules. However, the cost of cell harvest and recovery can become expensive depending on the harvesting technique, degree of purification, and intended use of the end-products. This has led to numerous research in exploring and developing efficient harvesting techniques. Therefore, in this review, the popular harvesting techniques and their recent applications will be discussed.