Comparison of Fluidized Bed and Fed Batch Reactor Cultures for Production of Anti-HIV-Antibody

High product yield, product quality and stable reactor culture conditions are a key to economically viable pharmaceutical bioprocesses. Two types of culture methods for production of recombinant anti-HIV-antibody were applied within this study. The tested cell line was a DHFR- recombinant CHO cell line expressing anti-HIV antibodies (CHO-4E10; Polymun Scientific, Vienna, Austria).Cells were cultured in a perfused lab-scale fluidized bed Cytopilot Mini™ reactor (Amersham Biosciences, Uppsala, Sweden) attached to macroporous Cytoline 1™ (Amersham Biosciences, Uppsala, Sweden) microcarriers and as suspension cells in a pilot scale stirred tank bioreactor fed-batch process. Both processes were performed using protein-free media. The systems were compared in terms of cell growth, product yield and product quality. Both systems were equally well suited for production of the recombinant protein in terms of product yield and product quality, however demonstrating an economic advantage of the fluidized bed process.