Production Methods for Hyaluronan

Table 4

A comparative view of technologies for manufacturing hyaluronan.

	Advantages	Disadvantages
Extraction from animal materials	(i) Well-established technology	(i) Variation in product quality
	(ii) Available raw material at low costs	(ii) Risk of polymer degradation
	(iii) Product with very high 𝑀𝑤 up to 20 MDa	(iii) Risk of contamination with protein, nucleic acids, and viruses
	(iv) Natural product	(iv) Extensive purification needed
		(v) Low yield
Bacterial production	(i) Mature technology	(i) Use of genetically modified organism (GMO)
	(ii) High yield	(ii) Risk of contamination with bacterial endotoxins, proteins, nucleic acids, and heavy metals
	(iii) Product with high 𝑀𝑤  (1–4 MDa)
Enzymatic synthesis	(i) Versatile technology	(i) Emerging technology in development stage
	(ii) Control of the 𝑀𝑤 of the products. Products up to 0.55–2.5 MDa and also defined oligosaccharides can be obtained	(ii) Technological and economic viability must still be demonstrated
	(iii) No risks of contamination
	(iv) Constant product quality