Manufacturing in the biotech industry has been undergoing many changes. An ADC Review article, Emerging Trends in Single-Use Technology in the Manufacturing of Antibody-Drug Conjugates, highlighted one of these trends:
First introduced in the late 1970s in the form of disposable capsules and a range of filters, single-use technologies were revolutionized in the late 2000s with the introduction of single-use 2D and 3D process containers and filter assemblies for mixing and storage systems. Today, these technologies have been adopted across the upstream manufacturing process, downstream purification and fill-finish of entire classes of biologic drugs.
Suppliers to the industry have been innovating to meet the single-use requirements of biotech manufacturers. Emerson’s Michalle Adkins pointed me to a recent award received for technology innovation for these single-use requirements.
Pharma Manufacturing magazine recently recognized some of these innovations in their annual awards shared in an article, 2019 Pharma Innovation.
Among the innovative technologies recognized and awarded was Emerson’s Rosemount 550pH single-use sensor. This was shared by the article’s author:
As the industry shifts from traditional stainless-steel bioreactors to disposable plastic bags, facilities need reliable sensors for vital liquid analysis. Pharma wants the flexibility of single-use methods, but also wants to achieve process control in the same way as with stainless-steel methods, with no degradation in performance. Emerson, with a long history of producing innovative technology, has stepped in to provide a possible solution.
The 550pH sensor is an electrochemical, fully disposable device with sensor stability of less than 0.005 pH change per day verified by extensive testing. The single-use sensors perform as well as or better than those used in stainless-steel bioreactors. Wherever possible, Emerson maintained industry-standard designs, eliminating the need for additional training. Added features, such as wet storage, overcome challenges that have long been plaguing single-use processing.
Facilities can now experience all the benefits of single-use bioreactors without having to compromise in liquid analytical instrumentation.
Michalle noted that dissolved oxygen (DO) is also an important measurement in many bioprocessing applications. Another sensor, the Rosemount 550DW single-use dissolved oxygen sensor adapter was designed for this application to enable measurement via a non-product contact sensor. It is compatible with standard stainless-steel DO sensors, and has been tested with the Rosemount Hx438 DO sensor.
Learn more about these and other innovations for pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturers in the Life Sciences & Medical section on Emerson.com. You can also connect and interact with other pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry experts in the Life Sciences group in the Emerson Exchange 365 community.
