title: Bioreactor productivity and media cost comparison for different intensified cell culture processes.
abstract: Process intensification in biomanufacturing has attracted a great deal of interest in recent years. Manufacturing platform improvements leading to higher cell density and bioreactor productivity have been pursued. Here we evaluated a variety of intensified mammalian cell culture processes for producing monoclonal antibodies. Cell culture operational modes including fed-batch (normal seeding density or high seeding density with N-1 perfusion), perfusion, and concentrated fed-batch (CFB) were assessed using the same media set with the same Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cell line. Limited media modification was done to quickly fit the media set to different operational modes. Perfusion and CFB processes were developed using an alternating tangential flow filtration device. Independent of the operational modes, comparable cell specific productivity (fed-batch: 29.4 pg/cell/day; fed-batch with N-1 perfusion: 32.0 pg/cell/day; perfusion: 31.0 pg/cell/day; CFB: 20.1 - 45.1 pg/cell/day) was reached with similar media conditions. Continuous media exchange enabled much higher bioreactor productivity in the perfusion (up to 2.29 g/L/day) and CFB processes (up to 2.04 g/L/day), compared with that in the fed-batch processes (ranging from 0.39 to 0.49 g/L/day), largely due to the higher cell density maintained. Furthermore, media cost per gram of antibody produced from perfusion was found to be highly comparable with that from fed-batch; and the media cost for CFB was the highest due to the short batch duration. Our experimental data supports the argument that media cost for perfusion process could be even lower than that in a fed-batch process, as long as sufficient bioreactor productivity is achieved. © 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog., 33:867-878, 2017.
authors.affiliation: Process Development and Engineering, Biologics and Vaccines, Merck & Co., Inc, 2000 Galloping Hill Road, Kenilworth, NJ, 07033.
authors.forename: Sen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Process Development and Engineering, Biologics and Vaccines, Merck & Co., Inc, 2000 Galloping Hill Road, Kenilworth, NJ, 07033.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gavin
authors.affiliation: Process Development and Engineering, Biologics and Vaccines, Merck & Co., Inc, 2000 Galloping Hill Road, Kenilworth, NJ, 07033.
authors.forename: Rubin
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Process Development and Engineering, Biologics and Vaccines, Merck & Co., Inc, 2000 Galloping Hill Road, Kenilworth, NJ, 07033.
authors.forename: Hao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D061249:Batch Cell Culture Techniques / Q000191:economics* / Q000379:methods*; D019149:Bioreactors / Q000191:economics*; D016466:CHO Cells; D002452:Cell Count; D003412:Cricetulus; D003470:Culture Media / Q000191:economics*
chemical_list: D003470:Culture Media
keywords: cost of goods; fed-batch; perfusion; process intensification; upstream processing