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Introducing Novo Nordisk Pharmatech: A Rebranding Initiative Transforms the Former FEF Chemicals

In June of this year, Leah Rosin, BPI’s marketing and digital content strategist, spoke with Rasmus Hother Le Fevre, managing director and corporate vice president, Novo Nordisk Pharmatech A/S (formerly FeF Chemicals A/S), about the company’s rebranding initiative. She began by asking him about the company’s history and reason for the name change to Novo Nordisk Pharmatech A/S. Le Fevre: Novo Nordisk Pharmatech was established in 1949 as FeF Chemicals, acquired by Novo Nordisk in 1986, and has been part…

Simulation and Optimization Software for a Chromatographic Step

This webcast features: Thomas Flouquet, Area Sales Manager/Application Specialist for low pressure chromatography BioSC® Predict is the first simulation and optimization software for the development of chromatography processes dedicated to the purification of biopharmaceuticals. Its innovation was recognized at the Achema 2015 Awards in the Pharmaceutical Engineering category. With a few clicks, the user can easily generate batch, parallel batch or continuous chromatography recipes and directly run them on BioSC® technology, with any adsorption media. BioSC® Predict is driven by…

Enabling Cell Therapy Manufacturing

As this special Pall supplement of BioProcess International issue goes to press, progress continues in the field of cell therapy research. The revival of cell (and gene) therapy has been driven by some positive achievements that have occurred over the past decade. Cell therapy products differ in many ways from traditional small-molecular and biologic products. The main difference is that, contrary to traditional biopharmaceutical applications in which cells secrete the product of interest, in cell therapy applications cells are the…

Positioning for Success: An Interview with Mario Philips

On 12 March 2015, BPI met with Mario Philips, president, single-use technologies, at Pall’s Port Washington, NY, facility, to learn about Pall’s reasons for entering the cell therapy market. Also participating in the discussion was Alain Fairbank, director of marketing for cell therapies at Pall Life Sciences. Read the full text of this article in the PDF (Login required).

Meeting Lot-Size Challenges of Manufacturing Adherent Cells for Therapy

Adherent cells such as adult primary cell lines and human multipotent (MSCs) and pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) present a manufacturing challenge as lot sizes increase from 109 (billions) to 1012 (trillions) cells (1). Typically, manufacturing platforms are good for one log of expansion. So new methods will be required to achieve commercially relevant lot sizes. Traditional two-dimensional culture methods have been used to grow anchorage-dependent cell types. Although such methods are reliable and well defined, they are very labor intensive…

T-Cell Suspension Culture in a 24-Well Microbioreactor: High-Throughput Screening of Operating Conditions

Cell therapy promises revolutionary new therapeutic treatments for cancer and other serious diseases and injuries. For example, T-cell therapy response rates of >50% and durable complete response rates of 20% have been reported in patients with metastatic melanoma who had failed other therapies (1). In another example, sustained remissions of up to a year were achieved among a small group of advanced chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients upon treatment with autologous T-cells expressing an anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (2). Numerous other…

Scaling Up Stem Cells: Moving from Laboratory to Commercial Production with a Single-Use Multiplate Bioreactor

Cell-based products are becoming increasingly important as potential biotherapies. Cell therapy is predicted to have a huge impact on the healthcare sector over the coming decades. Stem cells, in particular, are investigated as potential treatments for a diverse range of applications (such as heart disease and metabolic and inflammatory disorders) in which they might be used to restore lost biological functions. Read the full text of this article in the PDF (Login required).

Expansion and Characterization of Mesenchymal Stem Cells on Pall SoloHill® Microcarriers

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are self-renewing cells that differentiate into several terminally differentiated cell types. These cells have been isolated from multiple sources such as bone marrow, adipose tissue, peripheral blood, and other adult tissues(1–6). The interest in these cells is that they hold the potential to cure disease and are being pursued in clinical trials. Three emerging fields of interest for stem cells are cell therapy, regenerative medicine and screening of candidate drugs. In many cases, poor correlation between…

Strategies for Microcarrier Culture Optimization

The process of delivering an allogeneic stem-cell therapy to patients requires isolation and expansion of rare tissue-specific stem cells, which are subsequently delivered to individual patients for treatment. One type of cell used for such therapies is commonly known as human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs). They have been isolated from a number of tissues: e.g., bone marrow, heart, brain, placenta, and umbilical cord. And they have been shown to be immune-privileged in that hMSCs elicit no graft-versus-host (GvH) response such…