The interest in continuous bioprocessing to introduce productivity gains and cost savings is rapidly growing. Periodic counter-current chromatography (PCC) is one suitable technological approach, enabling continuous downstream processing. However, implementation in downstream applications is still uncommon mainly due to perceived complexity in operation and process control strategies.

This work demonstrates the dynamic control function of ÄKTA™ pcc 75 chromatography system when applied to a protein A capture step operated in a three-column PCC (3C PCC) setup. Dynamic control enables sample load adjustments in case of changes in feed composition or chromatography medium capacity. Here, changes in both concentration of monoclonal antibody (MAb) in the feed (Fig 4) and chromatography medium capacity (Fig 5) were used to verify the dynamic control functionality.

The results show that the dynamic control functionality was able to adjust for differences in feed concentration. The variation per column with regard to both amount eluted MAb and eluate concentration was 3% and 4%, respectively. The dynamic control functionality was also able to adjust for differences in dynamic binding capacity (DBC) between columns. Despite the difference in DBC between the chromatography media, the relative variance with regard to the amount eluted MAb per column was less than 3%.