Challenges and Solutions for Commercial Scale Manufacturing of Allogeneic Pluripotent Stem Cell Products
This publication examines process challenges associated with commercial-scale manufacturing of allogeneic products derived from pluripotent stem cells. It addresses the limitations of planar culture and the need for scalable bioreactor processes that maintain cell yield and quality across development and production scales. Key considerations include aggregate morphology, mass transfer, hydrodynamic shear, energy dissipation, expansion, differentiation, medium exchange, and harvest. Vertical-Wheel® Bioreactor geometry provides a homogeneous, low-shear hydrodynamic environment, while computational and experimental examples illustrate scale-up principles for maintaining aggregate characteristics and manufacturing PSC-derived therapeutic cells.
This publication reports a fully suspended process for expansion and six-stage differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem cells into stem cell-derived islets in 0.1 L and 0.5 L Vertical-Wheel® Bioreactors. A fivefold increase in vessel volume produced a twelvefold increase in islet-equivalent yield without compromising islet structure. The 27-day process generated endocrine populations expressing ?-, ?-, and ?-cell markers with glucose-responsive insulin secretion and transcriptomic characteristics approaching adult islets. The study also evaluated donor-derived iPSC lines, cellular…
This protocol provides step-by-step guidance for forming and expanding pluripotent stem cell aggregates in PBS-MINI Vertical-Wheel® bioreactors. The workflow begins with thawing and adherent seed-train culture in T-flasks, followed by transfer to three-dimensional suspension culture in 0.1 L or 0.5 L vessels. Instructions cover inoculation, medium exchange, sampling, morphology assessment, metabolite and pH analysis, cell counting, viability testing, and harvest in the PBS-Mini bioreactor. The document presents recommended starting parameters for seeding density, working volume, agitation…
This publication investigates hydrodynamic scale-up of human pluripotent stem cell aggregate cultures in 100 mL and 500 mL Vertical-Wheel® Bioreactors. Three-dimensional flow simulations and aggregate trajectory analysis were used to evaluate shear stress and energy dissipation rate exposure across multiple agitation conditions. Exposure profiles were compared with aggregation efficiency, cell growth, aggregate size, and fold expansion during six-day cultures. Energy dissipation rate exposure correlated with aggregate formation and expansion performance, while shear stress was not a…
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