Improvements and innovations in lentiviral manufacture

Lentiviral vectors are safe and efficient gene transfer tools for cell therapies and are often required at high titres; however, robust and cost-effective large-scale vector production remains challenging. 

Here we describe WuXi Advanced Therapies’ XLenti suspension platform, which uses a high-producing HEK293 clonal cell line, OXGENE's XLenti™ packaging plasmids and carefully optimised up- and downstream processes that can deliver titers up to 1E8 TU/mL and can be scaled up to 200L. In-house plasmid engineering and antibiotic free plasmid manufacture at research and GMP grade further simplifies technology transfer and accelerates development timescales for lentiviral based cell or gene therapies. Finally, for plasmid-free lentiviral vector production, our lentiviral producer cell lines incorporate all the genetic elements from the XLenti plasmid system alongside the gene of interest, and produce equivalent lentiviral yields to the transient system.