Multi-Level Approach is Key to Accelerate the Process Development in Animal Cell

As the processes are more complex and failures are most common in animal cell culture, industry should adopt multi-level approach to accelerate the process development. Speakers participated in the panel discussion on “Accelerating process development in animal cell” on the second day of the Bangalore Bio 2009, India's premier Biotechnology event organized by the Department of Information Technology, Biotechnology and Science & Technology, Government of Karnataka, Vision Group on Biotechnology and MM Activ Sci-Tech Communications Co,  came out with some solutions. They are: Moving to platform based process instead of custom process, handling the data generated in the processes more effectively, provisioning for scalability, consistency, proper documentation, and effectively implementing regulatory requirements.  

Dr Anuj Goel, Chief Scientific Manager, Biocon Ltd, said, “Extracting information using statistical will accelerate the cell culture process. By planning well before the experiment is done, and by capturing the past experience at Biocon, we are able to cut down the time by 30%. Shifting people from one process to another will show up on the out put and time. The need is to invest in trainees and continuing them in the same process. Companies should invest adequate resources into analytical development. Programme managers also play an effective role in balancing time and resources.” 

Dr Mathias Joehnck, Vice President, R&D, Merck KGaA, Said, “ Bio processing moved from  small bioreactors in 70s to multi process reactors today and productions quantities also have gone up. Discovering the smart side of the process economics should be key driver to accelerate any process.”  

Dr Sriram Subramaniam, Director, Production, Dr Reddy Labs, said, “The value of the past experience should be captured effectively in order to add value for the future in the process. The mindset of blaming on technical complexities should be changed. There should be coherence among Development, processes and management to speed up the processes and to achieve better outputs. Specialist functions with minimal staffing are another mantra. Rich and analytical abilities to create models for cost of Revenue should be basis for management decision making.” 

Mr Vijay David, Manager, Bioproduction Sales, Invitrogen bioservices India Pvt Ltd, said, “Nowadays, companies are looking at platform based processes instead of custom processes. Automation of the process eliminates manual cloning. Several issues arise while transforming a biological process into an automated system.” 

Dr Ashwin Gajra, Head, Bioprocessing, Richcore Lifesciences Pvt Ltd, Said, “Complexity of processes within a cell makes cell culture very difficult as there are no tools to accurately measure the processes. Knowing the role of components of the media used in the cell culture can optimize the process. Planning of any process should address high throughput, scalability, reliability, efficiency and cost effectiveness. Today, Miniature Bioreactors are addressing most of these needs.”