Production of biotherapeutics whether for clinical development or large scale manufacturing campaigns intended to be converted to final drug product often involves frozen storage. Frozen storage provides manufacturing process flexibility while enabling long-term product stability. Products are frozen and stored using a variety of technologies including stainless steel vessels, bottles, carboys and single-use bags. Use of bags has become popular due to their low investment cost and process flexibility attributes. Single-use bags intended for freezing and storage are often made with films using EVA and/or LDPE with product routinely blast frozen and stored to -30°C in a cold storage warehouse. During freezing and transport, the bags will typically experience temperatures well below -30°C ranging from -50 to -80°C. Under these conditions, the bags have to endure a wide variety of stresses (film brittleness, volume expansion, etc.) impacting integrity. With applications (like working cell banks for example) requiring lower temperatures for maintenance of long-term product stability, frozen storage films and containers designed for these conditions are needed. The new single-use Freeze-Pak™STS (FP-STS) frozen storage and transport solution containers from Charter Medical, Ltd. are manufactured using a unique polyolefin monolayer film designed for freezing applications The FP-STS bags (including tubing and connectors) have been validated for storage to -80°C, while the Freeze-Pak™ film remains flexible to temperatures as low as -196°C. The new Freeze-Pak™ STS bags deliver the flexibility and durability required for frozen storage and transport.

Single-use bioreactors are usually applied in the biopharmaceutical industry for mammalian cell culture processes. For microbial processes, concepts like the CELL-tainer® technology allow comparable gas-liquid mass transfer rates like in stirred tank reactors. In the CELL-tainer, the rocking motion of the bag is generated with a combination of a vertical and horizontal movement. Due to a 2-D rocking motion, the turbulence in the liquid is intensified. Thus, volumetric oxygen transfer rates (kLa) of over 400 h-1 could be achieved. Recently, the successful scale-up of an Escherichia coli nutrient-limited fed-batch cultivation from the 15 L to the 150 L scale in the CELL-tainer single-use bioreactor has been conducted. A final biomass concentration of 45 gL-1 within 24 hrs was obtained in cultivations proving the general suitability of this reactor concept for the application of bacterial processes. The combination of intelligent software sensor control strategies and currently improving (single-use) sensors will lead to a reduction of current drawbacks and improve control of bacterial fed-batch processes. The availability of single-use bioreactors for microbial cultivations widens their potential, not only in biopharmaceutical processing, but also as a pre-culture bioreactor for large scale processes and as a suitable tool in bioprocess development.

Decrease time to produce usable protein by maximizing target protein yields through transient transfection. The TransIT-PRO® Transfection Kit uses animal origin free components designed for high and reproducible nucleic acid delivery into suspension CHO and 293 derived cells. Since it is compatible with varied media formulations, the same media can be used for both transient and stable expression. The TransIT-PRO outperforms linear PEI in protein yield, while providing a cost-effective alternative to FreeStyle™ MAX and 293Fectin™ Transfection Reagents.