Exhibiting at this year’s Interphex, Cytiva unveils the Xcellerex magnetic mixer, a single-use mixing system that has been specifically designed to address challenges faced by customers engaged in large-scale mAb, vaccine, and genomic medicine manufacturing processes. Sized in 2,000 and 3,000 L capacities, the mixer offers several configurations to cater to diverse mixing processes.
Amanda Halford, President, Bioprocess, Cytiva says: “We're tapping into our differentiated portfolio to solve a wide range of challenges for our customers. Our new magnetic mixing system is flexible and capable of meeting the many demands and constraints during buffer and cell culture media preparation. By reimagining the design, we’ve tackled some of the biggest obstacles to downtime.”
A major contributor to time and money losses are leaks. A minor leak can cause or lead to a major setback—it can mean a full working day lost for our customers. When dealing with a 3,000 L batch of cell culture media, the estimated financial loss can cost between $60k to upwards of $100k. That’s just the material and labor. It doesn’t factor in the opportunity cost and other effects caused by not having media available for your cell culture processes.
To help prevent leaks, the system includes a novel mixer biocontainer incorporating user-centered design elements aimed to bolster durability and improve ease of use. This evolution in design results in enhanced safeguards, providing added protection against leaks throughout shipping, storage, and operation.
Another constraint during the development of drug therapies is the quality and time it takes to mix a batch. Mixing floating powders, like cell culture media, can be a challenge with many of the mixing systems currently available. Most of these systems have underpowered impellers and with a circular or cubicle shape that is less than ideal, particularly for large production volumes. Powder tends to float on the surface of the liquid, making it difficult to mix evenly into the fluid or leading to prolonged mixing times. The new mixing system has a powerful impeller that when combined with the mixer’s hexagonal shape creates a vortex, enhancing the interaction at the liquid surface. This vortex effectively pulls down the floating powders into the main body of the liquid to allow for a more efficient and shorter mixing process.
Process engineers and scientists—who currently experience problems with tight facility constraints or complicated installation of large-scale consumables—will benefit from its compact size, allowing it to fit into tight facility spaces without compromising on capacity or requiring the need for facility expansion.
Halford says: “We are always listening to our customers—solving issues to more quickly get life-changing therapies to patients.”