Novo Nordisk Pharmatech showcasing recombinant insulin advantages at Bioprocessing 2019 Boston

Koege, Denmark: – World-leading insulin specialist Novo Nordisk Pharmatech A/S will be a prominent presence and exhibitor at August’s Bioprocessing Summit in Boston, showing how viable CHO cell density can be increased by supplementation with recombinant Insulin Human AF.

Novo Nordisk Pharmatech will exhibit from Booth 330 at the Boston Seaport World Trade Center with a display that showcases the impressive production advantages of its recombinant animal-free insulin.

CHO cell density

In particularly, it will point to the potential to increase viable Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cell density by supplementation with recombinant Insulin Human AF. This is significant because CHO cells have become one of the most widely used platforms for the production of biopharmaceuticals. Increased demand for safety and reliability has moved the standard for CHO cell culture media from Serum to Serum free and further on to chemically defined media.

In collaboration with UAB, Novo Nordisk Pharmatech has shown that addition of animal origin free insulin to three leading commercially available off-the-shelf chemically defined media under batch-mode culture resulted in significant increases in viable cell density, leading up to 53 % cell growth improvement and 66% of targeted protein production.

Production challenges

Transfer of T-Cells genetically modified to target cancer cell antigens (CAR-T therapy) is a promising oncology treatment strategy. The big challenge remains to scale-up the manufacturing process, improve consistency and reduce the costs.

One of the main limiting factors in manufacturing process has been dependency on human serum, which is used to support T cell growth and survival when cultured ex-vivo. This has posed both technical and economic challenges in implementing and adopting serum-dependent manufacturing processes. Human serum is expensive, with a limited supply that is unlikely to meet the demands when different approved CAR-T therapies become blockbuster treatment.

Human insulin AF advantages

However, high focus on T-Cell media development has recently allowed introduction of several serum-free media to the market, with different proprietary formulation based on key components, such as human insulin.

Using high quality recombinant Human Insulin as part of serum replacement can improve T Cell expansion and in-vivo function in CAR-T therapy optimization and also delivers further benefits:

• Proven to aid in the expression of difficult to express proteins.
• Supports expansion and in vivo function of human T Cells in the absence of human serum.

Insulin team

A Novo Nordisk Pharmatech team led by Human Insulin AF Product Manager Sara Gualdoni will be present at Bioprocessing 2019 to answer scientific and technical questions for professionals working in upstream bio manufacturing, R&D, BD, cell culture and media development, cell and gene therapy manufacturing.

“We will be able to point to powerful advantages in using our insulin for bioprocess optimization, high cell viability and increased productivity,” said Ms. Gualdoni.

About Novo Nordisk Pharmatech A/S

Novo Nordisk Pharmatech A/S was established in 1949 as FeF Chemicals, acquired by Novo Nordisk in 1986 and has been part of the pharmaceutical group since then. Novo Nordisk Pharmatech A/S is the leading worldwide supplier of recombinant insulin for cell growth media and pharmaceutical grade quaternary ammonium compounds (quats) for the pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical industry.

About Bioprocessing Summit 2019

The Bioprocessing Summit convenes more than 1,500 international bioprocessing professionals to share practical solutions for today’s bioprocess challenges.

Now in its eleventh year, Bioprocessing Summit 2019 is a five -day event opening August 12 at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston, MA.

Since foundation the event has grown to include 18 distinct conferences with seven week-long streams programs on upstream and downstream processing, analytical quality, formulation and stability, cell and gene therapy production, and manufacturing.

The event is organized by CHI with more information available at: https://www.bioprocessingsummit.com.

Resources

Click on Novo Nordisk Pharmatech events to learn more.
Click on Optimization of CHO-S cell culture medium to download recent scientific study.