Abstract
Next generation manufacturing (NGM) has evolved over the past decade to
a point where large biopharmaceutical organizations are making large
investments in the technology and considering implementation in clinical
and commercial processes. There are many well-considered reasons to
implement NGM. For the most part, organizations will not fund NGM unless
the implementation benefits the funding organization by providing
reduced costs, reduced time or additional needed capabilities.
Productivity improvements gained from continuous purification are shown
in this work, which used a new system that fully integrates and
automates several downstream unit operations of a biopharmaceutical
process to provide flexibility and easy implementation of NGM. The
equipment and automation supporting NGM can be complicated and
expensive. Biopharmaceutical Process Development considered
two options: (1) design its own NGM system or (2) buy a pre-built
system. PAK BioSolutions (Virginia, US), provides a turn-key automated
and integrated system that can operate up to four continuous
purification stages simultaneously, while maintaining a small footprint
in the manufacturing plant. The PAK system provides significant cost
benefits (~10x lower) compared to the alternative –
integration of many different pieces of equipment through a Distributed
Control System (DCS) that would require significant engineering time for
design, automation and integration. Integrated and Continuous
Biomanufacturing can lead to significant reductions in facility size,
reduced manufacturing costs, and enhanced product quality when compared
to the traditional batch mode of operation. The PAK system uses new
automation strategies that robustly link unit operations. We present the
optimized process fit, sterility and bioburden control strategy, and
automation features (such as pH feedback control and in-line detergent
addition) that enabled continuous operation of a 14 day end-to-end
monoclonal antibody purification process at the clinical manufacturing
scale.