This invention teaches a purification technology to extract an organic solution of paclitaxel by using a "Load and Lock Axial Compression Column" for industrial scale preparative high performance liquid chromatography. The "Load and Lock Axial Compression Column" is one in which a piston is used to pack and unpack the chromatography bed substantially to avoid voids therein, and to maintain bed compression during use. This effectively substantially prevents the formation of voids in the bed. The column can be packed with any packing material, including small particle size (e.g., about 10 .mu.m) media, and very high plate numbers are generated. The bed length can be adjusted by controlling the amount of packing material used to prepare the column.