Storing and preparing the culture media required to make protein therapeutics is a major challenge for biopharma, particularly given the growing interest in boosting output through intensification and continuous processing.

So says Guy Rachmuth, from Seattle services firm Just – Evotec Biologics, who told GEN, “Cell culture media requires significant footprint for both batching and storing media, including cold temperature storage for many final liquid media formulations.

“Manufacturers often need tens to hundreds of thousands of liters of media, making storage efficiency an increasingly important consideration. In addition, mixing equipment limitations can necessitate compounding multiple media batches per run and increase operational complexity in manufacturing.”

Rachmuth added, “These challenges become even more pronounced in intensified production processes, where continuous perfusion of bioreactors significantly increases cell culture medium volume requirements.”

With this in mind, Just – Evotec developed J.Media, a concentrated, room-temperature stable powder format that, the firm claims, reduces storage footprint, simplifies logistics and supports more flexible and efficient manufacturing operations.

The product was developed to meet the demands of Just – Evotec’s own manufacturing programs and has since become a core platform technology across the organization supporting nearly 70 projects.

Rachmuth told us, “Given the success we’ve seen internally, we recognized an opportunity to make J.Media available more broadly to the industry. By offering it as a standalone product, we aim to help other organizations benefit from the same combination of productivity, scalability, and cost efficiency.”

In tests, details of which were presented at the BPI conference and exhibition in Boston, the media outperformed several commercially available products, exhibiting higher volumetric productivity and cumulative titer.

According to Rachmuth, “The media routinely runs at 80-100 10E6 cells/mL maintaining high viability over a period of 15-25 days, or longer. Our productivity is higher than competitor media.

“In perfusion operations, volumetric productivities of up to 4-5 g/L/day have been achieved, highlighting the platform’s ability to support highly efficient manufacturing processes,” he said.