Large scale production of human albumin: three years experience of an affinity chromatography process.

Immobilized Cibacron Blue is a well-known tool for the separation of a number of proteins and enzymes. Among them, human plasma albumin was easily purified from crude plasma and consequently, this approach represents an interesting way for a production scale. Our data describes about three years of experience in the production of human albumin using large columns of immobilized Cibacron Blue. The amount of albumin produced per cycle was about 250 g on a column of about 50 l. Over 500 cycles the final purity of albumin was very high and constant (98-100%). The albumin yield of the chromatographic fractionation was approximately 82%. The column performance remained acceptable when regeneration operations were applied to the sorbent. The long life of the sorbent renders this approach very attractive and economically acceptable for large scale applications.