Quality by Design-Driven Process Development of Cell Culture in Bioreactor for the Production of Foot-And-Mouth Veterinary Vaccine

Quality by design (QbD) principle has been established as a guideline to emphasize the understanding of the relationship of product quality with process control. Vaccine product have characteristics of security and high efficiency, but it also has features such as complexity and rigorous regulatory for production. This case study describes an example of QbD-driven process development for manufacturing a veterinary vaccine produced with baby hamster kidney-21 cells. The study revealed that cell culture duration was the most significant factor affecting 50% tissue culture infectious doses (TCID50) and antigenic titer, and the factors of culture temperature and pH at infection phase exhibited less effect. Culture temperature at infection phase was the only significant factor for total protein. Through the Monte Carlo simulation, the design spaces of process parameters were determined. Meanwhile, the excellent and robust performance in manufacturing scale (4000-L) validated the effectiveness of this strategy. A reliable and robust multivariate process parameter range, that is, design space, was identified by this systematic approach. Our investigation presents a successful case of QbD principle, which encourages other researchers to combine the methodology into other biopharmaceutical manufacturing process.