Boost Your Bioprocess with Cytiva ActiPro Powder Medium

Modern CHO-based biomanufacturing asks more from your cell culture medium than ever before: high viable cell densities, robust protein expression and predictable scale-up from shake flask to production bioreactor. Cytiva’s HyClone™ ActiPro™ powder medium is designed to help you hit those targets consistently, while keeping your processes flexible and ready to scale.

Introduction to Cytiva ActiPro Powder Medium

As you design or refine a CHO process, you need a production medium that supports strong performance without adding unnecessary complexity. ActiPro powder medium gives you a chemically defined, scalable base that can fit into existing workflows while opening headroom for higher titers and more reliable runs. It’s built for industrial bioprocessing, but can be used as early as process development.

ActiPro is part of Cytiva’s HyClone media portfolio and is specifically engineered for recombinant protein production in CHO cell lines. By supplying a rich but defined nutrient environment, it helps you move from early clone screening to late-stage manufacturing with fewer formulation changes, supporting a smoother path to commercialization.

What Is Cytiva ActiPro Powder Medium?

Before choosing a medium, it helps to understand exactly what it provides and what it intentionally leaves out. ActiPro powder medium is a chemically defined, animal-derived component–free (ADCF), protein-free formulation that avoids hydrolysates and other complex additives, giving you cleaner process data and more consistent batch-to-batch performance.

The medium has been developed specifically for Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell lines commonly used in biopharma—such as CHO-GS, CHO-K1, CHO-DG44, and CHO-S—and is optimized for high-yield batch and fed-batch production of monoclonal antibodies and other recombinant proteins. It does not include growth factors like insulin, phenol red, or 2-mercaptoethanol, which help minimize variability from poorly defined components and simplify regulatory discussions around raw materials.

Key characteristics of ActiPro powder medium include:

• Chemically defined, ADCF, and protein-free formulation
• No hydrolysates, phenol red, 2-mercaptoethanol, or added growth factors
• No hypoxanthine or thymidine, supporting selection systems that rely on those pathways
  
• Designed for high cell viability and productivity in suspension CHO culture
• Available as a dry powder for preparation at your chosen working volume

Because ActiPro is supplied as a powder, you can prepare exactly the volumes you need, optimize hydration procedures to your in-house standards, and integrate the medium into both small-scale and large-scale single-use or stainless-steel systems.

Main Applications in Biomanufacturing

Once you understand the formulation, the next question is where the ActiPro powder medium fits into your overall bioprocess. In practice, you can use it across a wide range of upstream workflows, from intensified development studies to commercial production campaigns, with a particular focus on CHO-based recombinant protein and monoclonal antibody manufacturing.

ActiPro medium is primarily used as a production medium in batch and fed-batch processes, often after initial adaptation in a leaner medium such as HyClone ActiSM™. In these workflows, you adapt your clone to the ActiPro system and then run production phases in ActiPro medium while feeding with Cell Boost™ supplements to maintain nutrients and extend culture longevity. This strategy supports high viable cell densities and can help you reach multi-gram-per-liter titers with well-behaved clones. 

Common application scenarios include:

• Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs): High-yield fed-batch processes targeting multi-g/L titers

• Recombinant proteins: Production runs that require robust expression and correct folding

• Process development: Medium screening and optimization for CHO clones destined for scale-up

• Scale-down modeling: Small-scale bioreactor or shake-flask studies that mirror commercial conditions

Because the medium is chemically defined and ADCF, you can more easily interpret process data, compare lots over time, and transfer processes between sites or CDMOs while maintaining a consistent raw-material profile.

Related & Complementary Cytiva Media and Feeds

To get the most from ActiPro powder medium, you’ll often pair it with other Cytiva HyClone products that are designed to work together as a system. This integrated approach lets you adapt cells, feed cultures effectively, and maintain control over process conditions from seed trains through final production. 

A typical ActiPro-based upstream platform uses ActiSM medium for cell adaptation and early expansion, then transitions to ActiPro for production while feeding with Cell Boost 7a and 7b. ActiSM provides a leaner starting point, while Cell Boost supplements supply concentrated nutrients during the fed-batch phase without compromising the chemically defined, ADCF nature of the system.

You can position ActiPro and related products in your selection guide using a compact table like this:

Product line	Role in workflow	Typical use phase	Example product code
HyClone ActiSM medium	Adaptation/pre-production medium	Cell adaptation, early culture	SH31038.01 (powder, 5 L)
HyClone ActiPro powder medium	Production medium	Batch / fed-batch production	SH31037.01 (powder, 5 L)
Cell Boost 7a supplement	Primary nutrient feed (CD, ADCF)	Fed-batch feeding	SH31026.01 (powder, 5 L)
Cell Boost 7b supplement	Complementary amino acid feed (CD, ADCF)	Fed-batch feeding (10:1 with 7a)	SH31027.01 (powder, 0.5 L)

Together, these components form the ActiPro cell culture system—a coherent set of media and feeds designed for CHO biomanufacturing. Using them in combination can simplify tech transfer and make it easier for your teams to follow standardized preparation and feeding protocols.

Why Choose ActiPro Powder Medium for Your Process?

At this point, you may already be using one or more chemically defined CHO media and wondering where ActiPro fits in. The value of ActiPro powder medium lies in how it combines high performance with a well-documented formulation, flexible pack sizes and strong technical support, making it easier for you to build robust upstream processes.

From a performance standpoint, ActiPro medium has been shown to support high yields of recombinant proteins, including monoclonal antibodies that can exceed 5 g/L under optimized fed-batch conditions. At the same time, the ADCF, protein-free, hydrolysate-free formulation gives you a cleaner baseline for process characterization and comparability studies. You also benefit from well-defined process recommendations, such as culture temperature, CO₂ levels and suggested seeding densities, which can serve as a reliable starting point for clone-specific optimization.

When you evaluate ActiPro powder medium against other options, key reasons to adopt it often include:

• Consistent, regulatory-friendly formulation: Chemically defined and ADCF, with no proteins or hydrolysates

• Strong CHO performance: Demonstrated support for high viable cell densities and high titers

• Integrated system design: Intended for use with ActiSM medium and Cell Boost 7a/7b feeds

• Scalable formats: Powder packs sized for 5 L, 10 L, and 25 L final volumes after reconstitution

• Global technical support: Access to Cytiva specialists for process development and scale-up questions

Choosing ActiPro, therefore gives you more than just a single medium; you gain a platform that can underpin multiple CHO programs and remain stable as your manufacturing needs evolve.