Agronomics has unveiled that its portfolio company Meatly has developed a protein-free culture medium, which doesn’t contain any serum, animal-derived components, steroids, hormones, growth factors, or antibiotics.
Agronomics, a company with a focus on the field of cellular agriculture, has announced that its portfolio company Good Dog Food Limited trading as Meatly has achieved a significant milestone in developing a protein-free culture medium, costing only one pound per litre.
Culture medium is an essential element in the production of cultivated meat, providing cells with the nutrients required for in vitro viability and proliferation. Although animal cell culture is routinely performed in academic labs, creating the amount of biomass required for commercial scale and price points demands significant cost reductions and innovations for the replacement of certain medium components such as fetal bovine serum and albumin. Medium costs account for a significant portion of the costs of producing cultivated meat and reducing them is a well-known hurdle the industry faces as it looks to scale up and achieve price parity with conventional meat products, Agronomics unveiled.
Agronomics’ team observed that medium prices vary substantially between companies and in some cases are still at levels exceeding hundreds of pounds per litre, making industrial production economically unviable. However, Agronomics explained that Meatly’s new medium contains no serum, animal-derived components, steroids, hormones, growth factors, or antibiotics, and is used in their suspension culture bioreactors without micro-carriers. The absence of these expensive proteins, such as transferrin and insulin, as well as growth factors and micro-carriers, means the production of Meatly’s protein-free culture medium at an industrial scale is economically viable – at the price of one pound a litre. Meatly believes further cost reduction will be possible when higher volumes of the medium are purchased.
“Our protein-free culture medium represents a critical milestone for us and the wider cultivated meat industry. By setting this new benchmark, we are driving the cost of production down significantly, which is something the industry has been grappling with for years and is a huge step forward in scaling our technology and making our products available to pet owners at an affordable price and on a commercial scale,” says Helder Cruz, Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Meatly.
“Meatly’s creation of the very first protein-free medium establishes the company as a true technological leader within its field. Medium accounts for the majority of the costs involved in the production of cultivated meat and Meatly has single-handedly slashed those costs a hundredfold or more. This is a huge step forward in bringing the cost of cultivated meat to price-parity with conventional meat and, ultimately, toward the mass adoption of cultivated products. The company expects to shortly receive regulatory approval, and I am excited to feed their delicious product to my dogs,” adds Jim Mellon, Founder of Agronomics, an investor in Meatly.
Looking ahead, Meatly is gearing up for the release of its product in the coming months, backed by investors such as Pets at Home and Agronomics. In March, Meatly announced the production of the world’s first cans of cultivated pet food, which it aims to sell in the UK this year, becoming the first company to sell cultivated meat in Europe.
With achievements realised on a budget of £3.6 million over a period of approximately 18 months, the company’s trajectory is reportedly a hugely positive indication for the industry at large as it looks to commercialise and realise the ethical and environmental benefits cultivated meat can provide.
