Events of viral contaminations occurring during the production of biopharmaceuticals have been publicly reported by the biopharmaceutical industry. Upstream raw materials were often identified as the potential source of contamination. Viral contamination risk can be mitigated by inactivating or eliminating potential viruses of cell culture media and feed solutions. Different methods can be used alone or in combination on raw materials, cell culture media, or feed solutions such as viral inactivation technologies consisting mainly of high temperature short time, ultraviolet irradiation, and gamma radiation technologies or such as viral removal technology for instance nanofiltration. The aim of this review is to present the principle, the advantages, and the challenges of high temperature short time (HTST) technology. Here, we reviewed effectiveness of HTST treatment and its impact on media (filterability of media, degradation of components), on process performance (cell growth, cell metabolism, productivity), and product quality based on knowledge shared in the literature. K E Y W O R D S contamination, flash pasteurization, high temperature short time, precipitation, virus 1 | INTRODUCTION Viral contaminations are a severe issue in the frame of the production of biopharmaceuticals by mammalian cells. The production of therapeutic proteins from living organisms, such as mammalian cells, requires a set of components essential for cell survival and cell growth. Those components are provided by cell culture media. Formerly, bovine serum was widely used in cell culture media as a source of amino acids, proteins, vitamins, carbohydrates, lipids, hormones, growth factors, inorganic salts, trace elements, and other compounds. The use of serum or in general of any animal or animal derived raw materials is associated with a higher risk of viral contaminations. For safety and economic reasons, serum-free media, sometimes supplemented with protein hydrolysates, have been developed to replace the use of serum. 1 However, animal component free raw materials also carry a viral contamination risk if they were in contact with animal or animal-derived material during cultivation, manufacturing process, storage, or shipment. This risk of viral contamination by cell culture media raw materials was pointed out early in 1977 by Nuttall and al. 2 They reported the high risk of occurrence of bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) contamination in untreated fetal bovine serum. Some examples of viral contamination in the pharmaceutical industry were publicly reported and are presented in Table 1. Those virus contamination events become rare as only 26 virus contaminations were reported over the past 36 years. 3 Raw materials were the likely source of contamination in most cases. In 11 of the 12 reported