CHO business: Fujifilm Irvine bulks out media offering

Fujifilm Irvine Scientific has expanded its growth media business with products aimed at upping productivity of Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells in both perfusion and fed-batch bioprocesses.

The latest expansion in Fujifilm Irvine Scientific’s cell culture media sees the firm add BalanCD CHO Perfusion and BalanCD CHO DG44, designed to maximize growth, viability, and productivity of Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cell lines.

“All media in the BalanCD CHO portfolio are chemically defined and optimized with the nutrients and components needed to achieve the right balance between growth and production to deliver high titers,” a company spokesperson told BioProcess Insider.

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“They are all formulated to be scalable thereby to support the entire development process from bench top to commercial production.”

The animal component-free BalanCD CHO Perfusion medium is “also designed to maximize cell specific and volumetric productivities and maintain a steady-state for optimal productivity at low operative vessel volume per day (VVD) medium exchange rates,” we were told. “It is also designed to minimize cell specific perfusion rates.”

BalanCD CHO DG44, meanwhile, is intended to deliver high titers and increase productivity of CHO DG44 cell lines. The cell line is commonly used in the biopharmaceutical industry to produce recombinant proteins and monoclonal antibodies, with some of the approved biologics produced using CHO DG44 cell lines being Avastin (bevacizumab), Humira (adalimumab), and Herceptin (trastuzumab).

“As a natural system, productivity will depend on the cell line, molecule and protocol,” the spokesperson said. “Inhouse testing demonstrated excellent performance of BalanCD CHO Perfusion and BalanCD CHO DG44 when benchmarked against other commercially available media.”

Fujifilm Corporation entered the cell culture media sector in 2018 through its $800 million takeover of Irvine Scientific, adding a range of media for industrial cell culture, assisted reproductive technology, cytogenics, and regenerative medicines.