Cutting Production Time for Biopharmaceuticals

A view of Samsung BioLogics Factory 3 in Songdo, Incheon

Samsung BioLogics has drastically shortened the time to produce biopharmaceuticals by developing an advanced cell culture technology.

The company announced on Aug. 12 that it has developed the “N-1 (N minus 1) Perfusion” technology that can cut the production time by up to 30 percent. It applied the new cell culture technology to Factory 3 in Songdo, Incheon in July.

N-1 Perfusion is a technology that boosts productivity by increasing cell concentration by up to ten-fold by simultaneously carrying out cell culture and impurity elimination in the N-1 stage that comes right before the final cell culture stage (N) for biopharmaceutical production.

This technology allowed Samsung BioLogics to filter out impurities and waste left over by cells during their growth in an incubator, and to provide a constant supply of fresh media to cells left in the incubator. This allows the company to grow more cells by increasing the incubation period in the N-1 stage.

This approach addresses the shortcomings of the current method that has limits in extending the incubation period due to waste accumulated in the incubator during the cell culture process.

The company plans to win orders based on its quantitative competitiveness coming from the world's largest production facility, and its qualitative competitiveness obtained through the latest culture technology.

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