The rapidly growing interest for cell and gene therapies demands the development of robust, scalable, and cost-effective bioprocesses for viral vector production. For the production of lentiviral vector (LVV) at high titers, we have developed an inducible packaging system in suspension HEK293 cells from which we can also generate stable producer cell lines, in serum-free conditions. To evaluate the potential of this platform, we have generated a stable cell line that produces an LVV encoding a green fluorescent protein (GFP) and obtains 10E+07 to 10E+08 transduction units (TU)/mL at the 4 L, 10 L and 50 L scales. Functional LVV titers were maintained across all scales in bioreactors with different configurations and geometries indicating process robustness. Further, the addition of 10% feed increased the volumetric productivity by 3.5-fold in comparison to batch production, making our platform suitable for large-scale LVV production and showing a real potential for commercial manufacturing.
Category: <span>Manufacturing</span>
āClosed system.ā The term itself appears deceptively simple. However, the definition of a closed system, its implementation, and its impact on biomanufacturing has been anything but straightforward.
The journey toward implementing closed systems spans over 20 years. The concept of closed systems was introduced in January 2000 with the draft issue of ICH Q7. Since then, other industry guidance documents emerged, defining and supporting process/system closure as a primary means of risk mitigation to meet the baseline requirement of protecting the product, as defined in cGMP.
Presently, global regulatory agencies recognize three distinct definitions of a closed system. These definitions, found in EU Annex 1, EU Annex 2, and the PIC Annex 2A, all focus on product protection where the product is not exposed to the immediate room environment during manufacturing. This is where the journey begins.
Stirred tank single-use bioreactors (SUBs) have been widely adopted for production of biopharmaceuticals such as monoclonal antibodies in mammalian cell culture. However, they are seldom used for commercial production of biologics with microbial fermentation. SUBs offer time-saving advantages because they do not require significant downtime for cleaning and sterilization, so finding a SUB that can perform well with high cell density microbial fermentation processes has the potential to increase the number of production runs. Therefore, for this study, a His-tagged protease inhibitor was chosen as a model protein to demonstrate that the Sartorius Biostat STRĀ® MO, a SUB recently developed for microbial fermentation, is suited for recombinant protein production by high cell density Escherichia coli fermentation processes.
At 50 L scale, the SUB achieved good process control and allowed an oxygen uptake rate (OUR) of up to 240 mmoles/L/h. The fermentation runs produced up to 5.8 g/L of the soluble recombinant protein and a dry cell weight of >60 g/L at the end of fermentation. Additionally, the SUB showed a similar fermentation profile when compared with data from parallel runs in 15 L sterilise-in-place (SIP) vessels using identical media and process parameters. This study indicates that with a minimum investment of capital resources, stirred tank SUBs could be used in pilot-scale manufacturing with high cell density microbial fermentations to potentially shorten the timelines and costs of advancing therapeutic proteins to clinic.
Cell therapy has emerged as a promising technology that involves implanting live cells to replace/repair and restore normal function of damaged tissue. Autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI) has been proven effective for the regeneration of articular cartilage in defective cartilage tissue. The process starts with the collection of healthy tissue from an eligible patient, then isolation and expansion of desired cells in vitro under good manufacturing practice (GMP) conditions, qualification before release of the final cell product, and finally, implantation into the patient. The promise to deliver autologous cell therapies has its own challenges in robust and reproducible manufacturing. To commercialize a cell therapy, it is imperative that a robust and scalable manufacturing process is set up that is consistent, in terms of quality and quantity, in order to deliver the intended therapeutic effect.
We analysed the manufacturing parameters of over 100 cartilage samples that were used to deliver our proprietary, commercialized autologous cell therapy. The paper addresses the most cited challenges in the manufacturing of autologous cell therapies and describes a robust process of in vitro human chondrocyte cell culture. Also included are key factors in manufacturing for attaining a high-quantity and quality product for articular cartilage regeneration.
The ability to scale a cell culture effectively and efficiently, from lab to manufacturing, is critical to maximizing productivity whilst minimizing the risk of run failures and delays that can cost millions of dollars per month. The task of scaling well, however, is still considered to be a challenge by many upstream scientists, and this can be an exercise in trial and error. Traditionally, scaling has most often been performed using arithmetic in a spreadsheet and/or simple āback of an envelopeā calculations. For some, it may even come in the form of support from a team of data scientists using advanced analytical software. This dependency on what some consider to be complex mathematics or statistics has resulted in the common consideration of using just one scaling parameter at a time, one scale at a time.
However, it is difficult to determine easily or optimally, from the start, whether a process successfully transfers across scales based on only one process parameter, at one scale. In this article, we describe the benefits of using a risk-based approach to scaling, and the development of a software scaling tool known as BioPATĀ® Process Insights for predictive scale conversion across different bioreactor scales. BioPAT Process Insights can be used to consider multiple parameters and across multiple scales simultaneously, from the start of a scaling workflow. We briefly describe how it was used in a proof-of-concept scale-up study to allow a faster, more cost-effective process transfer from 250 mL to 2000 L. In summary, using BioPAT Process Insights, in conjunction with a bioreactor range that has comparable geometry and physical similarities across scales, has the potential to help biopharma manufacturing facilities reach 2000 L production-scale volumes with fewer process transfer steps, saving both time and money during scale-up of biologics and vaccines.
A perfusion approach at N-1, where cells stay in the exponential growth phase throughout the entire culture duration, is becoming more common as a strategy for process intensification. This is because the higher cell densities it generates allows manufacturers to skip seed stages and reduce process transfer time through multiple bioreactor sizes, thus providing more cost-effective biologics production in smaller facilities. However, this N-1 perfusion approach requires optimization. In this article, we describe the development and proof-of-concept studies with single-use rocking motion perfusion bioreactors in which we have achieved a ten-fold increase in viable cell count in N-1 seed stage, compared to the fed-batch control process, in just 6ā8 days. We also mention in detail how we inoculated a 50 L bioreactor production run using this intensified seed train and show comparable growth kinetics and yield with a control process, also at 50 L scale. Using this intensification approach in the future will help our manufacturing facility, the Biopharma Division of Intas Pharmaceuticals Ltd., reach 4000 L production-scale volumes with fewer process transfer steps, and without changing the feeding strategy or production bioreactors of our biologicsā portfolio.
Biopharmaceutical manufacturing often takes place in tank farms ā facilities in which large-volume vessels are used to support cell culture processes with equally sized, or even larger buffer preparation and storage tanks to support downstream processing. While the large cell culture vessels used to produce products are justifiable, current downstream buffer management approaches relying on high-capacity tanks lead to constraints on facility construction, operations, and plant flexibility….
The current draft of ICH Q12 appears to have taken several steps backward in the pursuit of the manufacturing excellence initiated by ICH Q8 (R2) pharmaceutical development and expanded by FDAās 2011 process validation guidelines…
Achieving very high levels of pharmaceutical product quality, particularly for the next generation of biologics, will require proactive use of a broad range of quality and process development tools throughout the therapeuticās development and manufacturing lifecycle. These tools are most effective when integrated using an expanded form of FDAās 2011 process validation guidelines. This article explains how process validation can be combined with quality by design (QbD), ICH Q8 design space (DS) and control strategies (CS), process analytical technology (PAT), and quality risk management (QRM) tools to provide a path to manufacturing very high-quality products. The approach establishes clear goals and then proactively builds appropriate control systems during process development to assure continuous control and verification of all manufacturing activities. Prospectively using the tools over the complete manufacturing lifecycle, from preclinical through commercial manufacturing, is particularly important to assure comparability from early product research and development all the way to commercialization. The continued evolution of these quality tools, as well as building new tools, will provide a path for the pharmaceutical industry to reach and maintain Six Sigma levels of product quality…