Tips For Preparing Process-Scale Chromatography Columns

By Terri Thompson and Peter A. Fung

By Terri Thompson & Peter A. Fung
First published September 12, 2016 on www.Biocompare.com

Column chromatography has been used for many years to successfully characterize, purify and manufacture products for the food and drug industries. Scaling up from laboratory-scale to process-scale purification is one of the most important manufacturing activities for the pharmaceutical industry. However, many challenges exist in this activity. Some issues start with column selection and transitioning the workflow protocol smoothly. Columns range in size from a few millimeters in diameter for laboratory-scale to two meters or more for process-scale. With larger diameter columns, issues with irregularities in media packing, pressure and flow can occur. Here we discuss a few key considerations when transitioning from small to larger-sized columns.