Pall lands WuXi fit out for mAb continuous bioprocess lab
US-headquartered Pall will equip the laboratory with its Cadence Integrated Continuous Bioprocess System and single-use technology platform to make monoclonal antibodies (mAb) at the site.
“Pall has the most advanced technology in continuous processing technology,” a WuXi Biologics spokesperson told us.
The project launched yesterday, and will initially focus on individual processes.
China-headquartered WuXi Biologics said the project will “gradually be expanded to downstream processing development and production.”
The laboratory will help the firms jointly enhance large-scale purification equipment and technology for the continuous process, added Wuxi Biologics.
The spokesperson told us 60 staff members will be assigned to the project, which will include 20 new positions at the laboratory.
Scale up, cost down
WuXi Biologics said the continuous process could significantly reduce mAb drugs’ manufacturing costs.
The contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) said it had developed high-yielding cell lines and laboratory-scale continuous processes, ‘significantly increasing the expression of some mAbs to up to equivalent of 40-50 g/L in the traditional fed-batch process, which is approximately 10 times more productive than the typical fed-batch process.”
WuXi Biologics said it plans to expand the continuous process scale to 500 L and reduce mAb manufacturing cost to 30-50 USD/g.
From there, the firm said it hopes to “reduce mAb manufacturing cost to 30-50 USD/g, and then scale up to 1000 L and further reduce costs to less than 15 USD/g.”
Earlier this year, WuXi Biologics announced Thermo Fisher Scientific would supply single-use technologies at its Wuxi City, China-based mammalian cell culture manufacturing site.
