Monitoring Mammalian Cell Cultivations for Monoclonal Antibody Production Using Near-Infrared Spectroscopy

Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy as a process monitoring and process supervision technique is reviewed in the context of biomanufacturing. An industrial pilot-plant mammalian cell cultivation process has been chosen to illustrate the use of on-line in-situ NIR monitoring by means of an immersion transflectance NIR probe. NIR calibration development must be performed carefully and should incorporate a number of steps to obtain a properly validated model which exhibits long-term robustness and is independent of process scale. A description of such good modelling practises is given. In general, NIR can be as accurate as the reference methods employed and at least as precise provided that sufficient spectral selectivity and sensitivity exists. NIR can also be used as a direct technique for very fast process monitoring and process supervision, thus enabling one to follow the trajectory of a process. This alternative to the indirect use of NIR through laborious calibration development with direct reference methods has been little explored. Since NIR is sensitive to both chemical and physical properties, the analysis of whole samples enables relevant process information to be captured and thus generates better process state estimates than by simply looking at defined process parameters one at a time.