Pre-packed Chromatography Columns

Pre-packed chromatography columns for purification are ready-to-use, available with different kinds of chromatography resins. Sizes range from milliliter scale for screening and method development up to tens of liters for GMP manufacturing. The columns offer significant advantages over traditional user-packed columns by eliminating the need for laborious column packing procedures and ensuring consistent and reproducible results.

Benefits of pre-packed columns - Enhancing Bioprocessing Efficiency

Pre-packed columns are designed to maximize process efficiency, providing the following benefits for bioprocessing workflows:

Time Savings: By eliminating column packing preparation time is significantly reduced, allowing researchers to focus more on their experiments and accelerate project timelines.
Improved Consistency and Reproducibility: Precise resin packing ensures consistent bed heights and uniform flow distribution, leading to reproducible results and better process control.
Reduced Risk of Contamination: As the columns are sealed and sterilized, the risk of contamination during packing is eliminated, safeguarding the integrity of valuable samples and minimizing the chance of rework.
Ease of use: The columns are delivered ready-to-use with all documentation such as HETP and AS for almost all columns and bioburden and endotoxin test for columns used in manufacturing. The following video shows what to expect when ordering pre-packed columns (SkillPak™) and how to connect them to a chromatography system.

Applications of pre-packed columns

Pre-packed chromatography columns can be used at all stages of a (bio)pharmaceutical product: from delevepment to large scale production. Column suppliers support this by offering a wide range of products tailored for different applications.

Chromatography Resin Screening: Small columns pre-packed with a variety of resins enable rapid and efficient screening of various chromatography resins.
Method Development & Scale-Up: Columns with increasing volumes facilitate a fast and efficient method development & scale-up. An example is shown in the application note “Development and scale-up of an antibody platform using 1 mL to 200 mL SkillPakTM pre-packed columns”
(Pre-)Clinical Manufacturing: GMP-ready columns are ideally suited for purifications during (Pre-)clinical manufacturing as these columns are often only used for short campaigns.
Commercial Manufacturing: With the rising popularity of single-use manufacturing, pre-packed columns streamline the purification process of all biopharmaceuticals.
Multi-Column & Continuous Chromatography: Due to their very low column-to-column variability, pre-packed columns provide best performance for multi-column & continuous chromatography. An example are Tosoh Bioscience’s SkillPak BIO columns, which are dedicated columns for this application.

Fig 1.: Example of pre-packed columns in various inner diameters and bed lengths (Tosoh Bioscience SkillPak)

Quality attributes of pre-packed columns and where to buy them

As with all chromatography columns the performance of the column packing and therefore the separation performance is of highest importance. This is reflected in a high plate number and asymmetry value of close to 1. Typically, pre-packed columns have a reduced plate height value of 3 to 7 and a asymmetry value of 0.7 to 1.6. Additionally, the variation of these values between different column packings of the same resin in the same dimension should be as low as possible.

Before choosing a pre-packed column it is essential to find a chromatography resin that provides sufficient performance for the separation problem at hand. When the correct chromatography resin is selected, there are typically two options to obtain pre-packed columns. The first option is to directly purchase the pre-packed column through the vendor of the chromatography resin. The second option is to go through a third party offering a column packing service. Purchasing a pre-packed column directly from the resin supplier reduces lead time and risks in the supply chain, but more importantly, only one party is involved, which is an advantage for troubleshooting and support. Ready to take your research to the next level? Browse our extensive range of pre-packed chromatography columns (SkillPak) and explore the possibilities they offer. Contact us (hyperlink zu info-mail?) today to learn more about our products, request samples, or discuss your specific application needs.

References:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29089107/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29373126/

Pre-packed Columns for Purification