Big Biopharma? ABEC launches 4,300L single-use bioreactor

By Dan Stanton

- Last updated on GMT

All about the size? ABEC launches world's largest single-use bioreactor
All about the size? ABEC launches world's largest single-use bioreactor

Related tags Disposable

ABEC has launched the world’s largest single-use bioreactor with a working volume of 3,500L.

Pennsylvania-based bioprocess solutions firm ABEC has launched its Custom Single Run (CSR) system, offering biologics makers  4,300L of total volume, in what - with a 3,500L working volume – it says is the largest single-use bioreactor available.

“We see significant demand for flexible facilities to address the highly variable market demands and have the capability to respond quickly to increase capacity,”

Kevin Caffrey, Regional Manager at ABEC in Boston told Biopharma-Reporter.com the firm has had a positive from industry for this size of system. “Customers appreciate that we are addressing unmet market needs.”

The uptake of single-use is less of a trend but more a normality​ in the bioprocessing industry, but until now most drugmakers have used disposable systems up to a capacity of 2,000L.

Fujifilm​ and Shire​, for example have equipped their relative sites with 2,000L reactors, stating that as the productivity of mammalian cell lines increases, biologics makers can make significant - even commercial - quantities without resorting to the huge volume stainless-steel  systems.

And Caffrey confirmed ABEC is seeing “significant demand for flexible facilities to address the highly variable market demands,”​ and this latest offering may give firms “the capability to respond quickly to increase capacity.”

Volume and Price

But with larger single-use systems there comes questions of whether a plastic system can safely support the physical weight of such volumes, as well as the price.

“Single use bags are capable of these volumes,”​ Caffrey confirmed, adding it has been demonstrated “in single use buffer bags which are filled and emptied in current processes.”

As for the cost, “the ABEC CSR-DC is a custom product so costs depend on the application,”​ he continued.

Last month​, ABEC opened an 87,000sq ft site in Fermoy, Ireland bought from an electronic component firm FCI in order to tap into the Irish biomanufacturing industry.

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