Amersham ups ante on ultrafiltration

Amersham Biosciences has launched a new range of ultrafiltration cassettes, under the Kvick brand, which it claims "help to speed up bioprocessing timelines by offering an easy way to separate, concentrate and diafilter biological solutions."

The Kvick range consists of both hardware and disposable cassettes in several configurations and can be used in the purification of monoclonal antibodies, plasma factors, recombinant proteins and vaccines.

Mike Estabrook, membrane separations marketing manager at Amersham Biosciences commented: "There has been increasing demand from customers for significant improvements in membrane separations products that will help them meet the ever-increasing pace of today's pharmaceutical bioprocessing."​

The cassettes consist of macrovoid-free membranes, arranged in flat sheets, which offer good product recoveries and yields, according to Amersham. In addition, their design eliminates corner space areas, removing places where impurities can hide in the cleaning process.

In the Kvick product brochure, Amersham notes that, "the fact is, traditional membranes contain macrovoids in their substructure. These macrovoids subvert the strength of the membrane and increase the risk of membrane rupture." Under process conditions, these macrovoids may lead to 'pinhole' imperfections, resulting in lower product recovery or filtration failures. In contrast, "Kvick cassette membranes provide higher membrane strength, longer-term stability, superior retention and high temperature stability," claims the company.

Scale-up from laboratory benchtop to pilot and process environments is possible with the Kvick system, with linear increases from millilitres through to cubic metres.