Single-use and sustainability: Continued studies using LCA tools

The issue of plastic materials in our environment has been of recent interest. The biotechnology community has responded by examining the effects of single-use systems employed in biomanufacturing. It is natural to emphasize a particular set of environmental concerns over others, and especially the more visible ones. But, in supporting truly sustainable manufacturing systems, it is important to consider all relevant types of pollution or environmental stress. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a science-based approach for evaluating the environmental impacts, benefits, trade-offs, and burden shifts of a process in an objective format. It considers materials, equipment and facilities of a production process over the entire life cycle, “from cradle to grave.” Cytiva has performed a second, extended LCA study of biomanufacturing that considers additional equipment scale, product types, production modes, and installation placements. It compares traditional stainless steel, single-use, and hybrid facilities in the production of Monoclonal antibodies (MAb) and Adenovirus vaccines (Adv), across the full process train including upstream and downstream operations. It includes the effect of many new parameters, including 1) such regional distinctions as shipping distances and power and water sources, and 2) various end-of-life disposal options.

Speaker:
Bill Whitford
Strategic Solutions Leader Cell Culture, Cytiva

Bill Whitford is Strategic Solutions Leader in Logan, UT with over 20 years experience in biotechnology product and process development. He joined the company as an R&D Leader developing products supporting protein biological and vaccine production in mammalian and invertebrate cell lines. Products he has commercialized include defined hybridoma and perfusion cell culture media, fed-batch supplements and aqueous lipid dispersions. An invited lecturer at international conferences, Bill has published over 250 articles, book chapters and patents in the bioproduction arena. He now enjoys such activities as serving on the Editorial Advisory Board for BioProcess International.