Process Excellence in Microbial Fermentation
Boehringer Ingelheim Austria GmbH pioneered the microbial fermentation and purification of therapeutic proteins from E.coli since 1982. Over the last decades the company's expertise and experience broadened to the development and manufacture of plasmid DNA (pDNA), antibody fragments and protein scaffolds using E.coli and yeast expression technologies.
Process science: process development
About 550 well-trained people at our site in Vienna are dedicated to the biopharmaceutical business. Our Process Science group is experienced in process transfer and optimisation providing product safety and economical benefits. Recovery and purification are performed using state-of-the-art extraction, refolding, chromatography, crystallisation and filtration systems. The Team has built high value Intellectual Property for these processes.
Large scale production: commercial supply
To supply the global market, biopharmaceuticals are produced in compliance with cGMP guidelines at our large scale production plant. Fermentation technology and geometry of the bioreactors are kept identical in the pilot plant and the commercial multi-product manufacturing plant, thus ensuring consistency in process performance and product quality. The facility also includes an explosion-proof area to handle processes using organic solvents.
Capacity
- Three multi-product fermentation trains
- Scale-up capacity from 30 to 6,000 litres per fermentation train
- Batch or fed-batch fermentation
- Downstream processing is matched with fermentation scale
- Ten separate recovery/purification suites, 24m2 - 280 m2
- The plant is operated by a validated process control system.
