Continuous processing has been widely employed in many biological manufacturing processes. In recent years it gained the momentum in the field of Biosimilar manufacturing due to an ever-increasing pressure for reduction in manufacturing costs.
Potentially, the continuous processing offers Lower Cost of Goods, ease of scalability, and lower manufacturing footprint and hence became a topic of interest to many biosimilar players. Ongoing research on various new technologies for continuous operation, both in upstream and downstream processing may potentially be a game changer. Top on the wish list being, integration of all the multiple unit operations into a single continuous process with real time analytical tools.
Though there are several challenges to develop and adapt continuous bioprocess, the magnitude of potential benefits are currently driving the research programs worldwide. India , being a significant global player in the biosimilar domain, currently making efforts to adapt these novel processes to make the drugs more cost effective.