Enabling sustainable biomanufacturing by reducing the use of single use plastics in biopharma with the biocomputer platform

BiologIC is the inventor of the biocomputer, a highly integrated and programmable automation platform for producing bio-based products and data on demand. The biocomputer processes components of biological origin, such as cells, nucleic acids, proteins, and biological reagents, into useful products such as therapies. The biocomputer platform can run multiple applications from a common device.

The biocomputer comprises four core fluidic chips that can be reconfigured depending on the bioprocessing application or protocol; enabling the system to be used for multiple applications already demonstrated with customer projects, such as advanced cell therapies and small-scale batch mRNA vaccine manufacturing.

The next imperative challenge that we face is supporting our customers in their transition to sustainable bioprocessing. Recently there has been a shift in the biopharma industry to move from durables to single use bioreactors. This change was driven by process flexibility, ease to use, small footprint and sterility assurance. However, it has substantially increased plastic waste. With the biocomputer platform we want to provide our customers all the flexibility that single-use systems offer with the additional capability of reusability by integrating cleaning in place (CIP) and sterilisation in place (SIP) in a sustainable way.

The biocomputer's architecture inspired by the semiconductor industry is designed to support flexible manufacturing. The system integrates CIP and SIP enabling use as durable, long-term infrastructure. As part of the biocomputer standard architecture we have integrated a "wash circuit". The wash cycle comprises an architecture for distributing solutions around the system to clean and sterilise it for reuse. Additionally, we make use of the same infrastructure used for bioprocessing (eg. impeller, heater) to enhance the cleaning process.

There are two main challenges that we are looking to solve with this A4I: (a) the validation of the robustness of our CIP and SIP to avoid microbiological contamination and product cross contamination between cycles and (b) to determine the durability of the 3D printed bioreactor modules.

As a lean start up, BiologIC does not have internal resources or equipment for sufficient validation and characterisation or financial resources to pay partners such as NPL and ASTUTE on a commercial basis for the work. Only by collaborating with external expertise through this project can BiologIC optimise and validate the robustness of the CIP and SIP which enable sustainable biomanufacture by allowing re-use of the system for multiple biomanufacturing cycles and applications.