Assessment of membrane-based downstream purification processes as a replacement to traditional resin bead for monoclonal antibody purification.

Membrane chromatography devices are a viable alternative to packed-bed resins and enable highly productive purification cascades for monoclonal antibodies and Fc-fusion proteins. In this study, ion exchange and protein A membrane chromatography performances were assessed and compared with their resin counterparts. Protein A dynamic binding capacities were higher than 50 g/L for two of the tested membranes and with a residence time of 0.2 min. For polishing, it was observed that aggregate clearance was generally less performant with membrane separation when compared to resins with similar ligands. However, the comparable yield and increased productivity of membranes could be enough to consider their implementation. In addition, lifetime studies demonstrated that the performance of membranes remained robust over cycles. One hundred cycles were reached for most of the tested membranes with no impact on the process performance nor product quality. Finally, purification cascades were fully operated with membranes, from capture to polishing, reaching good levels of host cells proteins (less than 50 ppm) and aggregates (equal to or less than 1%). The outcome of this study demonstrated that resin chromatography could be fully replaced by membranes for monoclonal antibody and Fc-fusion protein purification processes.