High-throughput methods for miniaturization and automation of monoclonal antibody purification processes

In the last decade, high-throughput downstream process development techniques have entered the biopharmaceutical industry. As chromatography is the standard downstream purification method, several high-throughput chromatographic methods have been developed and applied including miniaturized chromatographic columns for utilization on liquid handling stations. These columns were used to setup a complete downstream process on a liquid handling station for the first time. In this article, a monoclonal antibody process was established in lab-scale and miniaturized afterwards. The scale-down methodology is presented and discussed. Liquid handling in miniaturized single and multicolumn processes was improved and applicability was demonstrated by volume balances. The challenges of absorption measurement are discussed and strategies were shown to improve volume balances and mass balances in 96-well microtiter plates. The feasibility of miniaturizing a complete downstream process was shown. In the future, analytical bottlenecks should be addressed to gain the full benefit from miniaturized complete process development.