ZETA’s scalable solution supports Valneva’s mission to combat Lyme disease.

ZETA resolved a complex downstream separation challenge and translated the solution into a full-scale production system.

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Solving separation, enabling vaccine. ZETA’s role in Lyme disease prevention.

Valneva, a biotech company developing innovative vaccines for infectious diseases, is working on a new Lyme borreliosis vaccine. ZETA contributed to the production of the valuable active ingredient by providing the perfect technical solution to a complicated separation problem that occurred during the downstream process and thereby plays an important role in bringing an urgently needed vaccine to the market. Based on the solution, ZETA provided an industrial-scale separation system to be operated at a CMO in Amsterdam.

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The challenge

As clinical trials progress, the need for a pure product increased. At laboratory scale, the water-insoluble product is extracted by phase separation with a detergent before further purification by chromatography. However, the phase separation step proved to be problematic even at the 10 L laboratory scale. Water would break through the detergent phase, preventing further downstream processing. Valneva approached ZETA with this phase separation problem.

The solution

Experimental studies

The ZETA Tech Center was involved to find a technical solution to this problem and to develop a draining strategy suitable for industrial scale production. The efficiency of the separation was monitored by conductivity measurements. A series of draining tests for various special technical installations led to the best technical solution for the separation problem: the use of a peristaltic pump for draining. Initial trials showed stable and reproducible results.

Industrial scale separation system

ZETA was approached by Valneva to provide an industrial scale separation system based on ZETA’s solution to overcome phase separation difficulties. Feasibility studies at the ZETA Tech Center paved the way for scale-up from 120 L pilot to 1,500 L industrial scale. The customer’s need for flexibility was met by designing and building a mobile skid consisting of two 750 L vessels. ZETA engineers used 3D modelling to integrate the skid into the existing production area. The skid was equipped with a temperature control unit (TCU), easy to clean agitators and a harvesting system.

An industry-scale system was designed and built, based on the phase separation solution developed at the ZETA TechCenter.

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Florian Krainer

Portfolio Manager

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