New whitepaper explores cell disruption equipment selection

The highest HPH operating pressure doesn’t necessarily mean the most effective equipment for cell disruption.

That’s the message from process engineering firm BPE, which has produced a new whitepaper on the selection of equipment for cell disruption.

The paper, available for free via the BPE website, forms part of the company’s pledge to share best practice across the manufacturing sector.

In it, author Gary McRobbie explores the various solutions available for cell disruption systems and the factors that can impact efficiency. The whitepaper focuses on BPE’s project for a major biopharma client, which was looking for a new cell disruption system to be used after the centrifugation of the fermentation harvest solution and prior to further downstream processing.

An analysis was made for a planned future pichia cell line to assess the financial benefits from purchasing a machine that operates at higher operating pressure with increased cell disruption efficiencies and whether the additional capital investment was justified.

After careful analysis, taking into account a variety of scientific and cost factors, it was concluded that the additional investment in high pressure HPH or high pressure micofluidisation would not meet the client’s target for return on capital investment. The recommendation was to use a medium pressure machine, which would meet the client’s forecast product technical and commercial requirements, while making significant savings in capital investment.

Gary McRobbie said: “Selecting the best available technology for a project requires a robust assessment of critical process parameters and critical quality attributes. The paper reviews a structured approach to get the decision right, first time.”

To request a free copy of the whitepaper visit https://www.bpe-ds.com/about-us/bpe-whitepapers/