Global Single-Use Network Supports Assurance of Supply

What It Covers

Dr. Gerard Brophy, EVP of biopharma production at Avantor, outlines how single-use systems in bioprocessing have grown post-COVID, and details the supply chain risks, regulatory compliance frameworks, and operational excellence strategies manufacturers need to manage these systems at commercial scale globally.

Key Questions Answered

• •Supply Chain Diversification: Shift from just-in-time to just-in-case inventory management by holding regional safety stocks near production sites. COVID exposed the fragility of centralized supply models, and manufacturers now require suppliers to maintain inventory within the same geography where production occurs, reducing disruption risk for critical consumables like polymers, filters, and tubing assemblies.
• •Single-Use Facility Advantages: Single-use systems reduce facility footprint, eliminate cross-contamination risk between products, and cut labor costs by removing cleaning and sterilization steps. For CDMOs running multiproduct lines, changeover between drugs requires no stainless steel decontamination, enabling faster turnaround and more cost-effective custom fluid-handling configurations matched to specific modalities.
• •Extractables and Leachables Characterization: For new modalities like mRNA vaccines requiring lipid nanoparticle production, organic solvents with high polarity demand full extractables and leachables profiling of every wetted surface in the single-use fluid path. Manufacturers must characterize spallation potential — particle generation from tubing — early in process development to avoid downstream product contamination issues.
• •Four-Pillar Regulatory Compliance Assessment: Evaluate single-use suppliers across four areas: clean room production environment with documented real-time temperature, humidity, and differential pressure monitoring; product sterility validation against ANSI, AAMI, and ISO 11137 standards; a formal Quality Risk Management program with executive-level reviews; and supplier-side audits covering management of change for upstream raw materials.
• •Quality Risk Management Program Structure: A supplier's QRM must include a risk register, CAPA and SCAR tracking, and measurable operational metrics covering on-time delivery, engineering drawing turnaround, complaint volumes, and manufacturing defect rates. Critically, the QRM must extend upstream to raw material suppliers, since undisclosed n-minus-two component changes have historically caused unintended failures in highly characterized single-use assemblies.