Year: 2009-10

Company: PBS Biotech

Liaison(s): Brian Lee

PBS Biotech is a start up company that develops and manufactures single-use bioreactor systems, with a unique, pneumatic mixing technology. Their innovative bioreactor design can potentially impact the biotech manufacturing industry, not only with regard to biopharmaceutical production, but also in newer areas such as stem cell development, biodefense, and personalized medicine. Over the course of an academic year, the PBS TMP team has done an in depth technical characterization of the product by designing and carrying-out mixing, biological comparison, and scalability studies. Cell growth was compared for various cells between PBS bioreactors, at the 2-L and/or 50-L scale, versus 2-L stirred tank bioreactors and disposable wave-type bioreactors. Depending upon the cell line and culture conditions, cell growth in the PBS bioreactors was equal to or superior to growth in the other bioreactor designs. The team also performed a market assessment involving customer surveys and competitor analysis for the business segment of this project. Conference and academic databases were also built as extra resources for the company.