Continuous-flow centrifugation is widely utilized as the primary clarification step in the recovery of biopharmaceuticals from cell culture. However, it is a challenging operation to develop and characterize due to the lack of easy to use, small-scale, systems that can be used to model industrial processes. As a result, pilot-scale continuous centrifugation is typically employed to model large-scale systems requiring a significant amount of resources. In an effort to reduce resource requirements and create a system which is easy to construct and utilize, a capillary shear device, capable of producing energy dissipation rates equivalent to those present in the feed zones of industrial disk stack centrifuges, was developed and evaluated. When coupled to a bench-top, batch centrifuge, the capillary device reduced centrate turbidity prediction error from 37% to 4% compared to using a bench-top centrifuge alone. Laboratory-scale parameters that are analogous to those routinely varied during industrial-scale continuous centrifugation were identified and evaluated for their utility in emulating disk stack centrifuge performance. The resulting relationships enable bench-scale process modeling of continuous disk stack centrifuges using an easily constructed, scalable, capillary shear device coupled to a typical bench-top centrifuge.

The processing of recombinant proteins from high cell density, high product titer cell cultures containing mammalian cells is commonly performed using tangential flow microfiltration (MF). However, the increased cellular debris present in these complex feed streams can prematurely foul the membrane, adversely impacting MF capacity and throughput. In addition, high cell density cell culture streams introduce elevated levels of process-related impurities, which increase the burden on subsequent purification operations to remove these complex media components and impurities. To address this challenge, an evaluation of mammalian cell culture broth buffer properties was examined to determine if enhanced impurity removal and clarification performance could be achieved. A framework is presented here for establishing optimized mammalian cell culture buffer conditions, involving trade-offs between product recovery and purification and improved clarification at manufacturing-scale production. A reduction in cell culture broth pH to 4.7-5.0 induced flocculation and impurity precipitation which increased the average feed particle-size. These conditions led to enhanced impurity removal and improved MF throughput and filter capacity for several mammalian systems. Feed conditions were further optimized by controlling ionic composition along with pH to improve product recovery from high cell density/high product titer cell cultures.

Antibodies are an important class of therapeutics and are predominantly produced in Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cell lines. While this manufacturing platform is sufficiently productive to supply patient populations of currently approved therapies, it is unclear whether or not the current CHO platform can address two significant areas of need: affordable access to biologics for patients around the globe and production of unprecedented quantities needed for very large populations of patients. Novel approaches to recombinant protein production for therapeutic biologic products may be needed, and might be enabled by non-mammalian expression systems and recent advances in bioengineering. Eukaryotic microorganisms such as fungi, microalgae, and protozoa offer the potential to produce high-quality antibodies in large quantities. In this review, we lay out the current understanding of a wide range of species and evaluate based on theoretical considerations which are best poised to deliver a step change in cost of manufacturing and volumetric productivity within the next decade.Related article: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bit.26383/full.

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