The Single-Use Bioreactor (SUB) has been co-developed by HyClone and Baxter Biosciences and is intended as a retrofit product to replace the stainless steel bioreactor vessel in existing bioreactor systems on a single-use basis with no need for subsequent cleaning or sterilisation.
In two evaluations, results from the SUB have shown it to be 100 per cent compatible with those obtained from a traditional stainless steel bioreactor using identical titres and cell culture products.
"A 50l base system with one SUB bag costs around €23,000, while a 50l base system with one SUB bag is approximately €27,000," Frank Wolpers, Europe's industrial sales director for HyClone, told In-PharmaTechnologist.com.
"Compared to traditional bioreactors, there is no cleaning or sterilising required, no need to validate Clean-in-place (CIP) and Steam-in-place (SIP), no cross contamination risk and there is better cost allocation per batch."
Wolpers also said that compared to other disposable bioreactors, the SUB has a classical mixing system, comparable to the one of stainless steel bioreactors, so this makes it easier to scale up once the volume range of the SUB is not enough.
It also offers better scalability in general and sensors in direct media contact.
Also on show in the BioLOGIC 2006 show were examples of HyClone's Labtainer single-use BioProcess Container systems for small volume liquid handling applications in bioresearch and biopharma production.
These systems are ideal for use as sample bags, for mixing and dispensing media and buffers, collecting cell culture end-products and chromotography fractions and also for storage.
The use of Labtainer systems reduces the risk of cross-contamination between batches whilst minimising turnaround time, cleaning costs and validations.