Prolific Machines, the biotechnology company pioneering light-controllable biomanufacturing powered by optogenetics, today announced a record-breaking productivity milestone of 21 g/L in a 15-day intensified fed-batch CHO run for a monoclonal antibody (mAb). This is more than double the industry standard of below 10 g/L, and the company is on track to reach its goal of 25 g/L in fed-batch by the end of 2026.
The achievement is powered by Prolific’s light-controlled biomanufacturing platform, which uses light and optogenetics to directly and dynamically control gene expression inside living cells. Unlike conventional biomanufacturing approaches, this technology gives developers precise, real-time control over when and how much protein a cell produces.
“To our knowledge, this result represents the highest reported titer for an antibody produced in a fed-batch format,” commented Deniz Kent, Ph.D., Co-founder and CEO, Prolific Machines. “The real opportunity lies in next-generation complex biologics such as multispecifics, cytokines, and fusion proteins. These molecules represent more than 50% of today’s early pipelines, yet developability challenges and chronically low yields continue to compromise their commercial viability. We’ve shown up to three-fold yield increases in that space, and are now working with multiple partners to enable high-yield manufacturing of promising molecules.“
“After more than 20 years in the industry, I’m proud to have been one of the first scientists to have witnessed fed-batch titers exceed 20 grams per liter,” commented Julien Meissonnier, Independent Director for Prolific Machines, and former Chief Scientific Officer of Catalent at the time it launched its GPEx® Lightning cell line development platform. “To emphasize the strength of Deniz’s team’s results: in my experience in the industry, including running the team that created a leading CHO cell line, GPEx Lightning, I’ve never seen data of this quality at this stage. This is clearly different and has a great potential to enable more complex biologics to reach patients and become the standard for the future of biomanufacturing.”
The record-setting run demonstrated exceptional process robustness, maintaining approximately 87% viability at harvest, reaching a peak viable cell density of approximately 33 million cells/mL, and sustaining a specific productivity of around 60 pg/cell/day. These metrics highlight the strength of the company’s intensified process design and the underlying stability of its production platform.
