Antibody manufacturing (CHO bioprocessing)
Antibody manufacturing means growing antibody drugs like pembrolizumab or trastuzumab in vats of engineered hamster cells, then purifying them. It is the industrial base for most modern cancer drugs.
Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell lines in 2,000-20,000 L stainless or single-use bioreactors produce grams per litre of antibody, purified by Protein A chromatography and viral clearance steps. Capacity is held by pharma (Roche, Amgen, Lilly) and CDMOs (Samsung Biologics, Lonza, WuXi Biologics, Fujifilm Diosynth, Boehringer Ingelheim). Continuous processing, higher titres, and biosimilar competition are reducing cost of goods; ADC antibodies and bispecifics add engineering constraints.
How it works
Stable transfected CHO clones expressing the antibody are grown in fed-batch or perfusion culture; downstream capture, polishing, viral inactivation and filtration, formulation and fill.
- Mature, high-yield platform
- Global capacity
- Long tech-transfer timelines
- Bispecifics and complex formats yield less
- Capacity concentrated in few sites and countries
Latest papers
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