The current focus of the Single Use Technology platform is the implementation of SUT in intensified and continuous biopharmaceutical production processes that provide vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, and cell and gene therapeutics.
The platform is lead by Prof. Regine Eibl and has both industrial and academic research partners in Europe and the USA. It is closely co-operating with the DECHEMA working group “Single-use technology in biopharmaceutical manufacturing”. Read our joint publications.
Please contact Regine Eibl.
In 2011, our platform was founded as part of Biotechnet.
Biopharmaceuticals such as mammalian cell-based recombinant protein pharmaceuticals are the most rapidly growing product segment in modern life sciences. The availability of high productivity cell lines providing up to double-digit gram level per liter has resulted in production facilities shrinking in size. This, combined with the requirements of healthcare for more economic production processes and an increasing number of potential product candidates has contributed to stainless steel being replaced by single-use equipment over the last 20 years.
This includes equipment used in upstream processing (e.g., mixers, bioreactors, filters, pumps), downstream processing (e.g., centrifuges, membrane adsorbers) and filling (e.g., needles, storage vessels). The Takeda facility in Lexington (Massachusetts) was one of the first commercial-scale single-use facilities. It is a fact that SARS-COV-2 has driven the development of single-use technology (SUT).