Novasep, a France-headquartered supplier of process development and contract manufacturing services and technologies, and the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI), have equipped the UK National Biologics Manufacturing Centre in Darlington with BioSC Lab, the latest state-of-the art technology for protein purification.
According to The Future of High Value Manufacturing in the UK report (published by the Knowledge Transfer Network in 2012), the global biopharmaceutical industry was worth in excess of £90bn, and would grow at 15–18% a year. At that time, the UK biopharmaceutical sector (principally biologics) consisted of more than 250 companies, but manufacturing was predominantly undertaken overseas.
CPI’s mandate is to get UK companies up and running in technological areas that offer the largest potential impact on the future of UK and global manufacturing. It provides services to SMEs that decrease time to market for novel products or processes.
Within this framework, the CPI has been keen to introduce breakthrough continuous processes in the UK biopharmaceutical sector, such as Novasep’s BioSC Lab. These enable developers to reduce equipment footprint and increase process yields, thereby saving time and money.
The installation of Novasep’s BioSC Lab will be a valuable asset to customers using the centre
'The National Biologics Manufacturing Centre has been designed to help companies of all sizes to develop, prove and commercialise new and improved processes and technologies for biopharmaceutical manufacture,' said Dr Chris Dowle, Director of Biologics at CPI. 'The installation of Novasep’s BioSC Lab will be a valuable asset to customers using the centre.'
Novasep’s BiosSC Lab can purify a few grams of proteins each day, which enables users to develop cost effective, high yield production processes while maintaining the same quality attributes of the protein. It supports any process operating mode and quickly provides the operator with the best operational parameters for purifying and converting a batch biochromatography recipe into a continuous, optimised one. Its simulation software, BioSC Predict, frees the process developer to set the most efficient mode and parameters to purify biomolecules such as monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), blood factors and other proteins.
'Novasep and CPI both use innovation as a strategy to solve problems in biopharmaceutical manufacturing,' said Alain Lamproye, President of the Biopharma Business Unit at Novasep. 'We believe our BioSC Lab will contribute to helping the UK biopharma sector step into the future of manufacturing, where the demand is for simplification and flexibility.'
