The protein A media, called Eshmuno A, offers biopharma manufacturers a new option for a resin that can be cleaned in either sodium hydroxide or phosphoric acid, which can be important for companies looking to remove contaminants while making antibodies, Bruce Hoffman, North American technical sales specialist manager at EMD, told BioPharma-Reporter.com.
“We’ve been in the protein A business for many years and this particular resin offers people some additional flexibility that other resins on the market don’t offer,” Hoffman told us.
He explained that the lifetime of a resin is important for manufacturers and that the ability to clean with either sodium hydroxide or phosphoric acid will give companies more options. Eshmuno A is also advantageous in reducing the burden of subsequent chromatography steps typically used in the purification of Fc-containing proteins.
David Beattie, Ph.D., head Biopharm Process Solutions R&D at EMD added that the media “also allows our customers to more effectively process the high titers coming from upstream processing."
Prepacked Columns
The other offering from EMD announced Tuesday is its prepacked chromatography columns, which fill an industry niche that eases the sometimes complicated downstream manufacturing processes.
A number of companies offering chromatography options have pushed into more niche markets in recent months. For example, Waters in July began offering new sub-2 micron solid core columns.
Hoffman explained that other companies, such as GE, offer similar prepacked columns but EMD’s were created with companies’ requests in mind.
For instance, the EMD offering is more ergonomically designed and includes wheels and handles for the 20 cm and 32 cm columns, which manufacturers had requested, he said. There is also room underneath the columns to allow manufacturers to piece together the appropriate tubing.
And companies can also now see some of the resin on the top and the bottom of the columns, which companies had previously said was a priority.
However, like the GE prepacked columns, the EMD offering is packed with EMD resin.
The columns are also designed for early clinical stage manufacturing and Hoffman said they may be useful for personalized vaccines “where the manufacturing need is smaller, and these columns might fit the bill quite easily.”