How innovative advanced materials can help intensify your bioprocess
A boosted demand for biologics has pushed downstream processing to innovate, in order to keep pace with the increases in titre and impurities in the upstream process. For example, fibre based chromatography utilizes high flow rates and high capacities of non-woven fibre to improve productivity, throughput and flexibility, while maintaining quality.
The most recent innovation in the market is the 3M™ Polisher ST, a fully encapsulated single-use
AEX technology intended to reduce host cell impurities, viruses and other negatively charged contaminants in flow-through chromatography for downstream bioprocess streams. It offers a sandbox approach to polishing, providing both cost savings and efficiency, which are both vital to biopharmaceutical manufacturing.
The 3M™ Polisher ST combines two complementary functional medias:
(1) a quaternary ammonium Q-functional nonwoven that enhances the removal of DNA, endotoxins and virus, while also reducing turbidity; (2) a guanidinium-functional salt-tolerant membrane that reduces HCP and viruses in a wide range of conditions.
Due to its high-capacity small-footprint, the 3M™ Polisher ST overcomes scale limitations and promotes cost-effectiveness, thereby supporting the growing demand for biologics.
Prof. Dan Bracewell: “If we look back over the last two or three decades, for a long time, we were using diatomaceous earth-based depth filters and agarose-based chromatography resins. The membrane materials as well were constrained to things like PVDF and a handful of polymers.
If you look at the market now, that has fundamentally changed, there are now more materials than ever before being used. With new modalities this will change further because our needs are changing.”
Dr. Hani El-Sabbahy: “We're still under the influence of COVID and what that's taught us is the need to be able to develop therapeutics quickly. Again, perhaps advanced materials offer a solution here. If you can have those materials which have a wider window of operation, then that should help to improve your development time.”
"A lot of innovation in downstream processing comes through material science, not actually improving the unit operations per se because, here, we have quite often almost reached the physical limits."
3M is a trademark of 3M Company
For more information on 3M next generation bioprocess technologies visit the 3M website here.
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