TFF Under Pressure

By Dr. Scott Rudge

Are there scale up issues for cross flow filtration?  In general, this step is overlooked as a scale up concern, and usually, given the primarily clean feed streams encountered in simple buffer exchange, this is warranted.  However, forewarned is forearmed when scale up is concerned.

Primarily, there is just one scale up issue with cross flow filtration, and that is the path length on the retentate side of the filter.  The flow on the retentate side of the filter is meant to continuously clean the filter surface, and prevent fouling, or at least limit it to a thin boundary layer.  The shear rate created by the fluid at the filter surface increases as the square of the linear velocity of the fluid.  The pressure drop through the filter module, from inlet to outlet, depends linearly on the length of the module, and also on the square of the linear velocity.  In many cases, a manufacturing scale module is about a meter in length.  However, on the lab scale, a module is likely to be closer to 10 cm.  Therefore, the pressure drop from the inlet to outlet on the retentate side will be 10 times higher at constant linear velocity on scale up from lab to manufacturing.  Since decreasing the flow rate will dramatically decrease the shear rate, the increased pressure will drive higher flux towards the membrane surface, increasing the thickness of the boundary layer and resulting in more surface polarization (fouling or gel formation, potentially). 

One approach taken to this predicament is to keep the pathlength constant on scale up.  This is analogous to maintaining constant bed height on chromatography scale up, an approach I disfavor.  The result of this approach is a “horizontal” scale up, where more and more units of lab proportion are lined up side by side.  This approach works, but is cumbersome and requires more and more manifolding for flow distribution, and other inconveniences.  It also assumes that the length of filter the manufacturer provides is the best and only length for every application, which is absurd.  However, this is an approach commonly pursued, and recommended by the filter manufacturers for its speed and certainty.

Another approach that is taken to this phenomenon is to increase the back pressure on the permeate.  This slows down the permeate independent of changes on the retentate side of the filter.  However, if the back pressure on the retentate side is greater than the pressure at any point along the filter on the retentate side, permeate will flow back to the retentate side.  This is clearly inefficient, it means a particular fluid element will be filtered at least three times, crossing from retentate to permeate, then back to retentate, and then eventually back to permeate on a subsequent pass.  This also means that the effective filtration area is decreased, as some portion of the filter is working in reverse, and another portion is working to correct the back flow.  The negative flow counts against filter area that is filtering in the positive direction.

Finally, employing a constant pressure gradient along the retentate side is worth trying.  Presuming the membrane geometry is essentially maintained on scale up (including spacers in the flow channel) maintaining constant pressure gradient along the retentate channel length means shear will be constant on scale up.  Pressure drop from retentate to permeate will be higher at the retentate inlet, but if the shear is appropriate and the boundary layer controlled, this will only lead to higher flux, which may be preferred.  This can be tested on the small scale by applying back pressure on the retentate and looking for leveling off of the flux vs. pressure curve.  As long as flux vs. back pressure is increasing linearly, you can get improved performance at higher pressure.  Then upon scale up, the pressure at the retentate inlet is held constant.  It is certainly worth exploring longer path lengths on scale up, performance may improve!

In the end, either horizontal scale up will be used, or some reduction in retentate flow rate will probably be required.  The result of the latter will be less shear at the membrane surface, but the payback will be in increased filtration efficiency.  Some back pressure should be applied to the retentate side on the lab scale, as more pressure due to path length will almost surely need to be applied in manufacturing.  Maintaining pressure drop on the retentate side with increased module length, along with back pressure on the permeate side usually results in successful scale up of a lab cross flow filtration procedure.

Sizing Up Filters

By Dr. Scott Rudge

Of all the unit operations used in pharmaceutical manufacture, filtration is used the most frequently, by far. Filters are used on the air and the water that makes its way into the production suite. They are used on the buffers and chemical solutions that are used to feed the process. They are used to vent the tanks and reactors that the products are held and synthesized in. But the sizing of the filters is largely an afterthought in process design.

Liquid filters that will be used to remove an appreciable amount of solid must be sized with the aid of experimental data. Typically, a depth filter is used, or a filter that contains a filtration aid, such as diatomaceous earth. A depth filter is a filter in which there are no defined pores, rather, they are usually some kind of spun fiber, like polyethylene, that serves as a matt for capturing particulate. You probably did a depth filtration experiment in high school with glass wool. Or you’ve used a depth filter in your home aquarium with the gravel (under gravel filter) or an external filter pump (where the fibrous cartridge you install is a depth filter, such as the "blue bonded filter pads" shown below).

A depth filter uses both its fiber mesh to trap particles, but also then uses the bed of particles to capture more particles. It is actually the nature of the particles that controls most of the filtration properties of the process.

Because of the solids being deposited onto the filter, the resistance of the filter to flow increases as the volume that has been filtered increases. Therefore, knowing the exact size of filter that will be required for your application can be complicated. The complication is overcome by developing a specific solids resistance that is normalized to the volume that has been filtered, and the solids load in the slurry. Once this is done, these depth filters can be sized by measuring the volume filtered at constant pressure in a laboratory setting. The linearized equation for filtration volume is:

By measuring the volume filtered with time at constant pressure, the two filtration resistances can be found as the slope and intercept of a plot of t/(V/A) vs. (V/A). The area of a depth filter is the cross section of the flow path. On scale up, the depth of a depth filter is held constant, and this cross section is increased. An example of the laboratory data that should be taken, and the resulting plots, is shown below:

As expected, the filter starts to clog as more filtrate is filtered. The linearized plot gives a positive y-axis intercept and a positive slope, which can be used to calculate the resistance of the filter and the resistance of the solids cake on the filter.

The resistance of the filter should be a constant and independent of any changes in the feed stream. However, the specific cake resistance, α, will vary with the solids load. It is important to know the solids load in the representative sample(s) tested, and the variability in the solids load in manufacturing. The filter then should be sized for the highest load anticipated. This will result in the under-utilization of the filter area for most of the batches manufactured, but will reduce or eliminate the possibility that the filter will have to be changed mid-batch.

Of course, reducing variability in the feed stream will increase the efficiency of the filter utilization, and reduce waste in other ways, such as reducing variability in manufacturing time, reducing manufacturing investigations and defining labor costs.

Is There Ever a Good Time for Filter Validation?

By Dr. Scott Rudge

What is the right time to perform bacterial retention testing on a sterile filter for an aseptic process for Drug Product? I usually recommend that this be done prior to manufacturing sterile product. After all, providing for the sterility of the dosage form for an injectable drug is first and foremost the purpose of drug product manufacturing.

But there are some uncomfortable truths concerning this recommendation

1. Bacterial retention studies require large samples, liters

2. Formulations change between first in human and commercial manufacturing, requiring revalidation of bacterial retention

3. The chances of a formulation change causing bacteria to cross an otherwise integral membrane are primarily theoretical, the “risk” would appear to be low

On the other hand

1. The most frequent sterile drug product inspection citation in 2008 by the FDA was “211.113(b) Inadequate validation of sterile manufacturing” (source: presentation by Tara Gooel of the FDA, available on the ISPE website to members)

2. The FDA identifies aseptic processing as the “top priority for risk based approach” due to the proximal risk to patients

3. The FDA continues to identify smaller and smaller organisms that might pass through a filter

Is the issue serious? I think so, risk of infection to patients is one of the few direct consequences that pharmaceutical manufacturers can directly link between manufacturing practice and patient safety, which is one of the goals of Quality by Design. Is the safety threat from changes to filter properties and microbe size in the presence of slightly different formulations substantial? I don’t think so, especially not in proportion to the cost to demonstrate this specifically. But the data aren’t available to demonstrate this hypothesis, because the industry has no shared database to demonstrate a range of aqueous based protein solutions have no effect on bacterial retention. There is really nothing proprietary about this data, and the only organizations that benefit from keeping it confidential are the testing labs. Sharing this data should benefit all of us. An organization like PDA or ISPE should have an interest in polling this data and then making a case to the FDA and EMEA that the vast majority of protein formulations have been bracketed by testing that already exists, and that the revalidation of bacterial retention on filters following formulation changes is mostly superfluous.

In the meantime, if you don’t have enough product to perform bacterial retention studies, at least check the excipients, as in a placebo or diluents buffer. A filter failure is far more likely due to the excipients than the active ingredient, which is typically present in much smaller amounts (by weight and molarity). By doing this, you are both protecting your patients in early clinical testing, and reducing your risk with regulators.