Biopharma needs to embrace new downstream processing technologies to overcome its manufacturing issues, according to an expert. Industry is reluctant to adopt new downstream technologies because firms prefers systems with which staff are familiar, said Alois Jungbauer from the Austrian Centre of Industrial Biotechnology at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences. He began by asking delegates at the BPI Europe virtual conference in July: “Why is chromatography so popular? “It’s the high selectivity. It’s the high resolution. We…

Automation can eliminate downstream bottlenecks and help pharma cut costs says the team behind a continuous downstream processing system at the UK Centre for Process Innovation. Manufacturing biopharmaceutical is a complex, time consuming and costly process. Most products are produced in batches – production runs through a series of steps and then ends. Batch production is reliable and able to make consistent product. However, it can be slow and expensive according to Stuart Jamieson, head of research at the CPI,…

Computational analysis and gene editing will yield CHO cells able to make protein drugs, faster and more cheaply says expert. The ability to turn cells into protein production “factories” is the foundation of modern biopharma according to Bjørn Voldborg, director of CHO cell line development at the Technical University of Denmark. “If you want to engineer a factory [cell line] you need to understand what machines you have in the factory. It’s the genome sequences of the CHO cells –…