Perfusion Bioprocessing for Viral Vectors

Overview

Continuous perfusion-based bioreactor strategies for retroviral and lentiviral vector manufacturing, developed at IBET from the early 1990s to address the fundamental biological constraint that retroviruses have an 8-hour half-life at 37°C, making batch culture highly inefficient. Retroviruses have an 8-hour half-life at 37°C, rendering traditional 12-day batch culture highly inefficient — viable product is generated only in the final day of the run — which motivated IBET to develop and publish the first perfusion system for retroviral manufacturing (published 2002), enabling continuous production and dramatically improved yield. IBET adapted simulated moving bed chromatography to a two-column configuration for viral vector downstream processing, reducing the column count from the six-to-eight columns used in chemical engineering to two in order to meet sterilization-in-place feasibility requirements for biopharmaceutical manufacturing. (Segment 5 (20:00-25:00))