Democratizing Biomanufacturing using Perfusion Fermentation

Description: Small-footprint manufacturing is a disruptive and unique opportunity for distributed and mobile production capabilities suited to stakeholders interested in efficiently establishing biomanufacturing independence. Sunflower Therapeutics is a women-owned and led early-stage public benefit biotechnology company that has developed breakthrough, small-footprint protein production systems. Our unique systems utilize perfusion fermentation, a mode of continuous cultivation for eukaryotic microbes. The benefits of perfusion cultivation have been well demonstrated using mammalian cells and include a reduced manufacturing footprint, lower capital investment and ongoing operational costs, and increased flexibility, productivity, and product quality.  At Sunflower, we have developed a single-use bench-top bioreactor for the automated, continuous production of proteins from eukaryotic microbes using perfusion–the Daisy PetalTM. We show that the Daisy PetalTM can be used for efficient continuous production of a variety of recombinant proteins by the yeast Pichia pastoris, including cytokines and hormones, subunit vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, and other antibody-like products. Furthermore, we describe Sunflower’s automated end-to-end manufacturing technology: the Sunflower Dahlia™ System, which includes integrated modules for perfusion fermentation, straight-through chromatography, and tangential flow filtration.