Abstract Process development with mammalian cells is often limited by the lack of resources and assay capacity to deal with the multiplicity and complexity of interrelated parameters in culture technology.Multi-component analysis, an issue in media development and in screening of newly established production cell lines, is subject to the same limitations.We therefore developed a high throughput system for the culture of mammalian cells in suspension. Our scale-down reactor system called “TubeSpin” allows many experiments to be run in parallel with a minimum of resources and labor. Reactor conditions were readily simulated using 50 ml centrifugation tubes as culture vessels mounted on a rotational shaker installed in a warm room. This system was applied to the development work for a number of CHO based processes for the production of a human recombinant IgG.We show here how such a system can increase process development speed and efficiency. The results presented illustrate the improvement of volumetric productivity using butyrate and temperature shifts.